The Pandemic Will Change the Course of Necktie History
Now that tie wearers have tasted freedom, nobody should expect them to travel back.
As America struggled to live through a world pandemic, a shattered economy, and record unemployment levels, headlines despaired: “neckties doomed.” Men were “slashing their clothing bills” to retailers’ chagrin, the Associated Press reported. people who continued to wear ties were downgrading from colorful, expensive silk to plain, cheap cotton. The year was 1921, and reports of the tie’s death were premature, to mention the smallest amount.
A century later, as Americans begin to emerge from another financially devastating pandemic, another rash of headlines is predicting the tie’s imminent demise. Last fall, the Financial Times wondered, “Is This the tip of the Tie?” More recently, The Wall Street Journal asked, “Will Ties Ever Be Relevant Again?” For quite a year, many men who once felt absolute to wear ties have shown au courant Zoom day by day wearing polos or perhaps T-shirts. Now that they need tasted freedom from the necktie—and have seen their colleagues, clients, and executives doing the same—how can they ever return to working with their necks encumbered?
After this pandemic, many fewer men will need to. The arc of fashion has always bent toward informality (and androgyny—since the late 1800s, women have sometimes worn ties too). But a significant disruption—like a war, a recession, or a world pandemic—can accelerate that natural change. Ties as an everyday accessory have certainly taken successful, from which they’re unlikely to recover fully. The deeper functions that ties have long provided—such as social signaling and private expression—will be absorbed by other garments. But ties will still be worn on the foremost formal occasions, and as quirky accoutrements for the self-consciously old-fashioned or whimsical. In other words, neckties are the new bow ties.
Spending on clothing fell overall during our collective work-from-home experiment, but attire from cubicle-friendly labels like Brooks Brothers, J. Crew, and state was particularly affected. With an estimated 25 percent people now wearing a unique size than we did pre-COVID—whether bigger or smaller—we’re visiting should buy new clothes eventually, but they'll not be the identical things we were buying before. While many employers are now more receptive flex time or pets within the office, they’re also relaxing workplace dress codes to permit leggings, hoodies, T-shirts, and sneakers. Men assembling wardrobes for these newly informal workplaces are likely to go away behind stiff-collared dress shirts and also the ties traditionally worn with them, even as some women may ditch pantyhose, skirts, and high heels. when events constantly reshape people’s preferences about what they wear, some fashion habits are surprisingly proof against change. Ties have to date avoided the fate of spats, bowler hats, and pocket watches. To persist for many years, a garment must serve powerful practical, social, or emotional needs that individuals is also only dimly tuned in to. Though decorative and somewhat superfluous now, the necktie was highly functional at the outset. Its ancestor, the cravat, became fashionable in Europe within the 17th century. Thought to be a military style introduced to France by Croatian mercenaries, it kept men’s shirt collars closed while protecting the neck from the cold.
But from the start, the necktie has also been a crucial emblem of both group identity and individual taste, sending subtle signals about the wearer’s wealth, social affiliations, culture, and intellect. Soldiers tied the ends of their plain cravats in knots or threaded them through buttonholes; courtiers decorated them with lace. As men’s suits became soberer and more uniform within the 19th century, their neckwear grew more intricate and individualistic. The effect of the Jane Austen–era fashion influencer Beau Brummell’s elaborately tied cravats was specified “dandies were struck dumb with envy, and washerwomen miscarried,” in step with a recent humorist.