Fit to be (un)tied

A follow-up to the blog about ties: The Wall Street Journal reports that the Men's Dress Furnishings Association, the trade group for U.S. tie manufacturers, is disbanding due to a continuing decrease in tie-wearing.

It does not help your cause if you are a tiemaker, interviewed while wearing "shorts, flip-flops and a polo shirt," and you say to the reporter, "We make ties for other people so we don't have to wear them." Or if you are designer Tom Ford, who retails silk ties for $195, and you say to a reporter when asked why you're not wearing a tie, "It was giving me a migraine. You can wear a tailored suit without a tie and look sexy, too. You don't need the tie."

As the story points out, "The problem for neckwear designers, as for regular guys, is that a tie no longer automatically conveys the authority and respectability it once did, even if it does cause some people to call you sir. In fact, it can be a symbol of subservience and of trying too hard."

Sigh.