Quote Originally Posted by McClef View Post
And I suspect that many gentlemen can't either.

And I cannot agree that pre tied ones are fakes either, they are a convenience for the less dexterous amongst us.
I'm with you in liking ruche ties but that said...

I'm no gentleman and I can tie my own ties.

Maybe it's just the eye of someone who works with his hands and makes things from raw materials but I think the pre-tied ones look fake, as well. They appear to me to be mechanically impossible and I spot them right away.

As I said in an earlier post, learning to tie at least one knot for my ties is something I learned about the same time I learned to shave...and it was about on a par with learning to shave. There are websites that show have illustrated instructions on how to tie a Four-in-hand or a Half Windsor, etc.. If a simple illustration on a website...not even a video...can teach a person to tie their own, it can't be that hard. And really it's not.