WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE NECKTIE?

WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE NECKTIE?

Is it Presidential?

Are Pearls….?

Is What We Choose to Wear a Signifier of Who We Are?

“A necktie was once a conversation piece. Now it exudes utter lack of conscience and empathy.  A tie is not in touch with issues.”

by James Kent Genovese

It was always superfluous, certainly by the Millennial definition: That which I do not possess is not worth possessing or, starkly, possession is nine-tenths of the law … of obsession.

While your hat still exists – hang onto to it through the next sentence, however tangential it may seem. Recent medical theories about the Appendix being anti-carcinogenic may lead this once-considered vestigial digestive organ to be renamed the Preface.  In other words, all content is upside-down revised.  From LinkedIn users I have learned that content is creative only if it makes money.  If you did not spin out on that traffic circle, please, read on.

Is there a man on LinkedIn who is pictured wearing the vestigial necktie? I can’t find one.  A necktie no longer makes a tried and true business appearance.  It just makes men look old, entitled or both.

A necktie does not quietly murmur “independence.” A necktie shouts: “Tied to this analog corporation and its widgets, a zero virtual reality product.”  Nothing says “bank branch officer” quite like rep stripes.  Club ties are for the Jamie Dimons.  His is Harvard’s but even George W. Bush is smart enough not to wear this thing.

Dubyuh’s reign oversaw and overlooked the professional class demolished by the 2008 Crash – called “Crisis” until this primary race to be an outsider, like Dick Cheney, someone who somehow will be qualified for the Oval Office.

Since Lehman Brothers subprime demise, it’s made no sense to dress like a class that has morphed from the heart (once shielded by the tie) to the appendix (shirt tails like entrails turned out) of Corporatism and the Body Politic. There were no WMDs, Cheney indeed wears his ivy club tie (Yale) and Halliburton never competed to refine Iraqi oil.  The tie does not lie.

Would Ted (remember Ted?) have picked up more delegates if he hadn’t lost the tie, his gut overflowing brand-new (Ew!) jeans that looked so, well, Canadian? These people have consultants?

A necktie used to say: Be Inside the Room. Since 2008 it says: Occupy the Room.  Is voter revolution in the air or smog?  Is it in the Flint Water dredged up in school districts in every primary state in search of America?  Why ties at debates, then open collars with rolled up dress shirt sleeves to shake hands at ice cream parlors?

If you do FB, you could look forever for ties until you light upon …

Weddings. We with cravats are still allowed to attend them even though dazzling bow-tied “servers” usually outnumber guests. A necktie, especially if rented, is tolerated at nuptials but do choose something new, instead, and too expensive; you'll be glad you did.  Wedding bow ties are often formidable since smiling server-wearers with glittering FACS teeth are professional salver bearers tied with silk Sulka -- while sulky guests drably stuff their faces with wild salmon, and their suit pockets with wadded paper doilies.

Those brave enough to who wear a tie of one’s own leave it untied and reveal the shirt tails under the jacket even if the look becomes: jacket-way-shorter-than-shirt.  This insures the insouciant look: I-don't-work-here.  Are we all clear on this?

Funerals: Now really. Haven’t you heard you’re taking up air space just by being alive, over forty and still employed?  Death is not a very good sign of health, and if you’re not a One Percenter, ashes for you.  Cremation is not only demographically, even marginally expected, it’s politically correct.  Luckily bowties fit most small urns.

Mustn’t get ahead of yourself wearing a vestigial necktie. Who can wear one in a world of food shortages and rapidly melting icebergs?  A necktie was once a conversation piece.  Now it exudes utter lack of conscience and empathy.  A tie is not in touch with issues.

We’re in for a six-month, class clashing, cashing-out presidential campaign with all candidates from Necktie Central – that’s New York, New York, the Empire Media State. Neckwear here is everything, and Hillary has many times been press bashed for wearing pearls.

Are pearls presidential? Germany’s Chancellor Merkel votes nay; yea from IMF Director Cristine Largard but she’s Parisian.  Back in New York, Fox, CNN and Page Six want to know, but unless all candidates wear pearls, the question is mute.  It may be too late in the game: If New York’s Hillary chooses now to wear a tie, Djuna Barnes Bookstore will reopen in the Village with the blowback that ERA will never be ratified.

Tireless and often tieless at 74, Bernie risks wattle neck exposure. Is authenticity a wise move even for an ascetic New Englander from Brooklyn?  Would Ethan Frome have been caught dead in a cravat?  Well ... yes!

Anyway, Ethan was fiction and we live in a factual world, right?

Fearless of turkey necks for now, Millennials discard the necktie faster than they can tweet: “Unlike my Boomer grandparents I refuse to kneel too often at the altar of retail.” Millennial Minimalism is nothing new.  We’ve been at this traffic circle before.  One year following The Summer of Love was the global student rage of 1968.  Ties died.  It was so long ago, college was affordable.

Countless times we’ve discovered minimalism means paying more to look like you own nothing. Designers save on fabric while fashion victims try to wriggle into skinny pants. The savings is not passed along to the consumer who pays more for less including, of course, comfort.  Why pay for a tie?  The cost of owning one is more than twenty deal-breaking lattes.

Aside from Starbucks, who wins? Apparently the Koch Brothers own all commodities which can be transmuted into endless substrates that include paper napkins and universal gasket rings.  Neckties will continue to be held suspect for reasons yet accountable.

How do we know the necktie is really most sincerely dead? The ever-visible, unstoppable PBS/CBS Charlie Rose lost his tie just this month!  Ralph Lauren supplies Charlie’s on-air wardrobe.  Has Ralph Lifshitz of the Bronx and East Hampton declared neckties are out = outre?  Across the Pond, when he became George’s father, Prince William, too, became tieless.  With the passage of time he may be addressed: “Your Adequacy.”

Since Barack’s re-election, a principal Hollywood donor always ahead of the image game of style-versus-content, David Geffen wears slightly-frayed-at-the-collar white T-shirts when interviewed and photographed at his immense manse, the former parkland home of Jack L. Warner (head of Warner Brothers when directors wore suits and ties on the set.)

So. Is all this just more smart-ass writing about nothing….?  If you read this far, you’re qualified to make that decision.

“International Necktie Day is celebrated on October 18 in Croatia (where the cravat originated, later copied by Parisians) and in various cities around the world,” according to Wikipedia.

You can discuss, even teach the history of anything while everything that galvanizes cultures is limned on the periphery.

You may also be qualified to be president or, if not, certainly merely secretary of state. Caution: Ties, scarves, jewelry and “face time” are required by full-time diplomats.  But you can double park anywhere you like.

This leads to the cravat caveat: Simple observations about what people wear reveals much about the fluidity of culture wars, fears and anger. Guess who is NEVER tieless?  Clue: Never shall the cravat-less be from sea-to-shining-lake at Maralago.

Another clue: Always tie attired while ordering: “Throw her out!”

Answer: The Donald. Sieg Tie!

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