“Always wear a collar and tie in a town, even if it’s by the sea, after six o’clock,” decreed that great arbiter of style Hardy Amies, dressmaker to the late Queen Elizabeth II, who published the advice in his 1964 rule book The ABC of Men’s Fashion.
Amies would be somewhat despairing of the tie’s recent relegation; even before the pandemic, the once-ubiquitous accessory was becoming less prevalent in men’s wardrobes thanks to a more casual, open-collar approach. Covid – and the work-at-home mandates – all but killed it off completely, with little need for shirts let alone ties.
It doesn’t help that shirt shapes have changed in recent years too: today, soft-fit or grandad collars are as likely to be worn with blazers as the stiffer varieties, rendering ties off-limits. But there are signs of a gradual fightback – fashion labels such as Prada, Paul Smith and Gucci recently sent ties down the catwalk, and at a recent blockbuster Ralph Lauren show in Los Angeles, John Legend and Ben Affleck buttoned up properly in neat ties and shirts.
There’s a certain ceremony to putting on a tie; the methodical threading, the sense of rightness when it’s adjusted just so, as seen on the timelessly stylish Bryan Ferry in 1975. Ties are things of beauty, not necessarily essential in today’s world, but an elegant final flourish. You can’t imagine Robert Redford’s Gatsby in anything but a shirt and tie.
Not all ties are made equal, of course: by the 1970s ties had shrunken to narrow proportions on the likes of David Bowie
(a trend subsequently repeated in the early ’00s thanks to Dior Homme’s shrunken silhouettes).
