Bow Tie Counter-culture?

[Rex_Tremende]

Jake's post linking to this weekend's Financial Times article on the popularity of kilts led me to search for that article on the ft.com website. This brought up the original page it was featured on where among the list of related Style section articles was this story on the comeback of the bow tie, that oft vaunted accessory here on these boards, published on the same day.

Meanwhile, the NYTimes style-on-the-street reporter Bill Cunningham mentions the same trend in his recurring audio slide show this week, along with his interpretive commentary, framing it in the context of a greater effort on the part of men to spruce themselves up a bit and add a dash of color (or cullah, as he puts it in his Brahman accent).

Several participants here have noted in the last few days that their interest in kilts has led them to a greater attention to quality and a more careful selection of clothes to wear. Is it possible that we are just part of a larger trend toward getting back to a more debonaire way of dressing? (See: Mad Men; Sherlock Holmes. Alan, not you!)

Regards,
Rex.

[Old Hippie]

"...a bow tie is a statement of jollity and elegance..."

With our -22C temps the last day or so I've been taking a break from the bows to wear some wool shirts.

I was reading a collection of cartoons about life in a machine shop -- The Bull of the Woods by J.R. Williams -- and about a third of the guys he drew back in the late 1930s and early 1940s wore bow ties while working on their machines. That's interesting. When you see something contemporary like that, it gives you an unintended picture of how things really were. Yes, it's a cartoon, but I also know machine shops, and he drew what he saw, including the bow ties that some of the guys wore.

I don't know about "old-school" but I do know that I'd have to try harder to dunk one of my bow ties in my soup...

[Bugbear]

I've mostly given up on bow ties, but I like them on other people.

[MacLowlife]

I think I read in the Wall Street Journal that bow ties are considered very hip these days. I know that the young prepsters in these parts love them, as do old disreputables like me. But we are a backward state, with little influence from the outside...

As any surgeon can tell you, one of the great beauties of the bow tie is that it does not get tangled in things- and it's pretty hard to spill things on them, too. They do wear out, though, especially where they rub against whiskers.

I was at one of those parties last night where you really didn't know whether or not to wear a tie. Most of those who did went with the bow.

[Ozark Ridge Rider]

I never saw my father in any tie but a black self-tied bow. He could tie it with one hand while driving not more than a mile of the country road on the way to town. We buried him in one of his ties, but I still have the others.

I can't tie them as good or as fast as he did, but they still look the best.

[pdcorlis]

To paraphrase Hamlet... The bows the thing.

[Tartan Hiker]

But we are a backward state, with little influence from the outside...

[beloitpiper]

As any surgeon can tell you, one of the great beauties of the bow tie is that it does not get tangled in things- and it's pretty hard to spill things on them, too.

My dad is a doctor and that's exactly why he wears them. It's not a fashion statement, he's just being practical.

[Oddern]

As a collector of neckties and bowties, it pleases my heart that this is on it's way in to fashion again. I don't have a very large collection: 100 neckties and 10 bowties.
And just because of fashion, I wear ties all to seldom. Not even the executives at work use ties, so it would be a bit strange if I did.

[Jack Daw]

I started wearing tyable bow ties with my business suits for work (and my kilt otherwise) last October or so. I only have 4 in my collection to date, so I will only be alternating the use of a bow tie with a long tie. So far, I am the only one who wears a bow tie at work out of 200 or so businessmen. The businesswomen where I work gave up ties in the 1980s.

The Houston Chronicle Style Section (or whatever he section is called) ran one of the syndicated articles above just a few days ago and someone gave me a copy that is still on my desk. It even includes instructions on how to tie it.