Tie Restraints: For Your Safety

I once worked with a butcher whom I knew only as “Earl,” a very interesting fellow. As he would go about his end-of-day activities, his bloody coat sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and he would drench all of his equipment in bleach before rinsing away the most tenacious blood, he would pass on to me interesting butcher stories. E.G., the time, back when he was working at Delchamps in the early 90′s, his dress code dictated that meatcutters wear ties. At the end of one day, he had removed his butcher’s coat, and was working on the meat cuber.

This is a meat cuber. It's basically like a paper shredder, except made for meat.

I don’t know if he’d already cleaned the blade guard, or if he was dealing with a particularly large piece of meat, or if he just was feeling dangerous, but he had the blade guard removed and propped up on the machine so that the safety magnets were still allowing the machine to run. Then, before he knew what was going on, he felt a pressure around his neck, and his airway was more constricted than a young nephew in the boa-constrictor embrace of his obese aunt. Earl was being strangled by his own neck tie!

Yes, as we all could have predicted, his neck tie had dangled right into the clutches of those blades, and he, unable to breathe and disoriented, was being led to sharp doom. The other butchers looked up, probably twitched their mustaches for a second or two as they mustered up a plan, and then, in one fell swoop, unplugged the machine from the wall, cut the necktie from Earl’s neck right below the knot, and then ripped the band from his gasping neck.

As a man who wears neckties frequently, I rarely face certain death at the hands of deadly butcher’s equipment; but I am, nevertheless concerned about unrestrained neckties. As a tall man, I must stoop considerably to reach sinks; in fact, I have to stoop quite often. And, as I stoop, my necktie succumbs to gravity and strives to maintain verticality. For quite a while, I was irked by my necktie’s excursions from its intended placement.

Fortunately, I found a solution in tie clips. Some of you may have problems with tie clips. Perhaps you consider them to be obsolete; perhaps you don’t like the way they look; perhaps you associate them with old men. Well, I can’t really convince you that they look good if you don’t think so already, but I do wish to differ with you on the matter of old men. If you were actually old enough to have any sense of history whatsoever, you’d know that tie clips, neat, sturdy, simple, trim, and linear, are the young man’s accessory, and that tie chains, looser, delicate, complicated, and sagging, were for old men (notice any parallels?). That was true even up through the Reagan years (Reagan, the best-dressed president since Eisenhower, wore tie chains [example], and he was definitely an old man), so if you think that tie clips are for old men, you are historically nearsighted.

So, anyway, I became fond of tie clips last Autumn. Initially I just had a simple ridged one that I wore all the time . . .

My First Tie Clip

. . . but I’ve started to get some with my surname initial, S, on them.

Hickok tie clip with initial S in Blackletter.

Gold plated on mother of pearl with initial S in Roman Majuscule. Sadly, the plating is rubbing off, but I doubt anyone will complain.

I like the initial directly over the tie's axis of symmetry.

I don’t really know what message goes with wearing your surname initial all over the place, but I do like my surname, and I think S looks good on tie clips. Actually, I think that these letters make good initials for tie clips and cufflinks:

A
D
E
F
G
H
K
M
N
P
R
S
W
Z

As for why I left out the other letters, I am not sure why. I really just can’t picture them looking good on a tie clip or cufflinks. B, C, J, O, Q, and U are just too curvy. L, T, V, and Y have awkward angles. I is just too narrow; it’s like a sideways H, but with the proportions all wrong. Maybe I would work, but it’d need to be a carefully chosen typeface, maybe a blackletter. X carries connotations of death, failure, or whatever, and I’ve never met a person whose last name started with “X” who wasn’t Chinese, and wouldn’t a Chinese fellow rather have his name in Chinese characters on his tie clip? Sure, maybe they don’t make tie clips with Chinese characters on them, but would he really want some Roman letter that can only clumsily approximate his Chinese name? Maybe so, but anyway he’d probably have a hard time finding an X tie clip anyway. I think A, F, H, K, M, and W are the best looking initials. I guess it’s because they’re very angular. A G with a spur would look cool, as well.

Anyway, I also wanted to point out that I am considering a paradigm shift. I have colleagues who disapprove of tie pins. I initially was intrigued by the idea, but I was turned off when I discovered that the pins damage silk ties with their pin marks. However, I have since discovered that wool ties are not susceptible to such damage. I am, therefore, considering adopting wool ties as my casual standard and reserving silk ties for informal attire and nicer casual. The wool ties would then be worn with tie pins. I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this idea, but it’s an interesting one.

A Tie pin, placed about where I would want to put it, securing my Black Watch wool tie in place. With ancestry from every nation of the British Isles, I feel comfortable doing this.

One of the problems this would address is the problem of width. Wide ties overwhelm tie clips (which often force the tie to hang somewhat off-center), and narrow ties are overwhelmed by tie clips. Most wool ties are narrow, so they would be well-suited to a tie pin. I’ve considered getting some thin, square-ended knit ties, and these would benefit in the same way. Wide ties are perhaps better suited to tie chains, although I have yet to contrive a good solution, since I am currently operating under the assumption that tie chains are, like elbow-patch sportcoats and mustaches, reserved for those with more seniority than I.

Here's a closer look at the tie pin--the color is a bit warm so just remember that it's supposed to be silver.

So think whatever you will of tie clips, but at least I don’t look like Dilbert.

It Seems Counter-intuitive

Indeed, it seems counter-intuitive for the male members a species cognizant of the dangers of strangulation to tie knots around their necks every morning. Indeed, more criminals (and, unfortunately, innocents) than can be counted have gone to their deaths wearing a hemp necktie.  But, for a moment, let us set aside our common sense so that we can discuss the aesthetics of tying knots around our necks.

The impetus for the train of thought, which is about to wreck, was an inner dialogue I had with myself about the so-called “perfect dimple.” Those who wear half- or full-windsor ties are aware of this dimple.  It is some kind of aspirational goal, a carrot dangling in front of the necktie-knotting hamster’s wheel.  Now I am thinking about my dislike for the terms “half” and “full” windsor (I think they should be “single” and “double,” respectively).

I’ve already started to digress, which is actually quite fortuitous because it brings us back to a discussion of knots. Most people (or men anyway) know the basic three: the four-in-hand, the half-windsor, and the full-windsor. There are a total of 85 possible knots (this is actually a theoretical limit, calculated mathematically by two researchers at Cambridge University.  So 85 is basically as good a ceiling as the speed of light).  But it takes a close inspection to recognize unusual knots, and the additional work required in researching them seems to me to outweigh the benefits enjoyed by the wearer of a fanciful knot.  Hence, I avoid these knots.

I realize that I often form habits solely for the purpose of not seeing my own habits in others, but in the case of necktie knots I must break from my precedent.  The half-windsor is my knot of choice nine out of ten days.  Occasionally I will use a four-in-hand knot, especially with wool ties, but I have never worn a full-windsor, except for the few times that I tie one just to remind myself of how stupid it looks.

An explanation is necessary, however.  In discussing knots with others, I have observed that there is much resistance to the half-windsor, often referred to as “your dad’s necktie knot.”  It is ordinary, pedestrian, common, etc.  This is all quite true, but let us consider its advantages.  The half-windsor is symmetrical and swift in implementation.  Not too much of the necktie material is used up in making the knot, so that tall people or obese people have enough length to cover their entire shirt-front.   The knot is a good, moderate size.  It is to necktie knots what hamburgers are to fast food.

The four-in-hand has its advantages as well.  The four-in-hand is often ridiculed as the “schoolboy’s knot.”  It is, admittedly, the easiest knot to tie.  Indeed, when I was roughly middle-school aged, I had trouble remembering the name “four-in-hand,” but I could remember that there were the “full-windsor” and “half-windsor,” so the other one was just the “half-ass.”  Nothing says puerile preppy pretty-boy quite like a pastel-colored broadcloth dress shirt with the top button unbuttoned and a thin, striped tie in some kind of color coordinating with the shirt with a slightly loosened four-in-hand knot.  Notwithstanding this connotation of puerility, many neckties worn with uniforms are tied with a four-in-hand knot.  It’s a small, simple, unobtrusive knot.  I would wear it more often, but I prefer the symmetry of the half-windsor.

Notwithstanding these aesthetic concerns, my preference for half-windsor and four-in-hand knots is more cerebral than aesthetic.  The four-in-hand is quite possibly the simplest knot to tie.  The half-windsor is essentially a four-in-hand with an additional wrap to make the knot symmetrical.  The topological elegance of such knots is what draws me to them.  Perhaps some of you think this is total bullshit.  Perhaps you mock me like this: “Edward, O fool, you say that you are drawn to topological elegance, but really you’re just a vain, pedantic charlatan who prefers the four-in-hand and half-windsor only because you don’t actually know how to tie more complicated knots and you’re too ignorant and apathetic to learn .”  This is perhaps more correct than can be verified at this time, but it is argumentum ad hominem and thus should be avoided by sensible people.  You are clearly insensible for using such an argumentum, so why should we listen to an insensible person?  Clearly you are wrong.

Now we get to the part where I completely unload on the full-windsor.  Here are some pictures of windsor knots so that we have the imagine our minds:

photo taken from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jm3/2203626297/

photo taken from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28436613@N07/2653136259

photo taken from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dissolved_photos/4318964283/

To the posters of these images, I apologize for using you as negative examples here, but I hope you will appreciate the increased traffic.

Anyway, the former two are rather extreme examples.  Just look at the awkward bunching of the necktie fabric near the knot.  It practically forms a pleat.  I can’t stand it at all.  Even the third image, which is the most reasonable of the three, still has this gathering of the fabric.

Another problem: have you ever felt a necktie knot?  The knot is basically a big, tight bundle of fabric very close to the neck.  The sight of a big hard wad of cloth very close to someone’s neck suggests gagging, strangulation or even a goiter.  I find it visually uncomfortable.  Then there is the consideration of having a gigantic wad of necktie very close to the face.  For many people, a large full-windsor knot has the potential to look larger than the chin. Too much.

That’s all I have to say about necktie knots for now.  I hate the dimple, by the way.