Ties, what to do and what knot to do.

Much as we have American sit-coms to thank for an encroaching childishness in the work-place, I personally can thank a specific American sit-com for a marked improvement on my style and sense of dress. Having changed recently from a long string of temporary jobs to a job that I hope will be the beginning of a long-enjoyed corporate career, I have also changed my style of dress from preppy-casual to a standard of suits and dress shoes, along with a modest but expanding selection of shirts and ties. Having been blessed by good advice in my past and a slight penchant for dandy-ism in my present, I do believe I have managed to weather this awkward and uncomfortable change with a reasonable amount of success, as evidenced that people still comment on my sense of style well after the novelty of suits should have worn off.

Suits (and shoes) will have their own entry on this blog, but I would like to start the subject of office-style with those accoutrements that allow for a little bit of flair or a great bit of garish insanity by adding a personal note to any uniform outfit; the tie. For every well chosen colour and knot-style walking the corporate hallways today there are several half-knotted wool concoctions holding together unbuttoned collars, which is a shame, as there really is not that much to the art of dapper deployment.

Personally, I like symmetry in my ties, so the traditional slanted stripes are not really a preferred part of my collection. Give me a solid colour or centralized pattern at any time. Others might prefer the college-look of blocky stripes slanting over their tie, and there certainly is something to be said for both options. There are things to keep into account however, as not every choice of pattern or colour goes with every type of shirt or suit.

• For double-breasted or high-lapelled suits (three front buttons or three-piece suits), don’t choose a thin tie or a thin knot, but cover as much of the space between the lapels as possible without going overboard toward the cravat-point. For lower-lapelled suits (one or two front buttons) a thinner tie and less obvious knot will do fine, providing one does not walk around like a colour-coded blues brother. A good rule of thumb is the more shirt-fabric the suit allows you to see, the more fabric the tie can allow you to see. Less shirt-fabric between your lapels means larger knots and wider ties.


• A striped suit and a striped tie can work remarkably well, but is very tricky. As always, if you are not exactly sure yourself it looks right, it probably does not. Smarter to go for solid coloured ties on a striped suit and allow your striped ties their time in the sun under a solid suit.


• Bow ties are associated with clowns, eccentric uncles and slightly misguided dandies. Stay away from them (ties and personages). A cravat can be very elegant, but be prepared to be seen as an antiques-dealer on the way home to his much younger boyfriend. Comical ties and novelty patterns fall into one simple category : discount fare. These can send a very clear personal message, but that message almost aways is “I have no sense of humour” or “I wear what my kids can afford to get me”


• Be careful choosing ties with shirts. Yellow tie on a blue shirt can make the yellow look green or the shirt look denim (if you are wearing a denim shirt with a tie already, please leave this blog now). It is best to stick with white or black shirts for brighter ties, as the colour will be brought out most. Striped shirts or more pastel shirts do well with muted ties.


• Patterns other than stripes should be subtle, if possible a result of the ties’ weave more than a dying process. If anything on your tie looks painted on, it might as well be a novelty tie. Another risk of applied patterns is that they can disrupt the lower edge of the knot, or start shedding where you usually would tie the knot, which is regretfully also the part most on view.

Your knot should be symmetrical, fill your collar-points and match up with the lower line of the collar. It is best to choose a tie that fills the space you need to fill, but in the interest of maintaining the customary dimple right underneath the knot it is better to tie a tighter knot in a wider tie than to fluff the knot on a thinner one. Paradoxically, it is always better to have a double knot on a thinner tie than it is to under-knot a wider one as the amount of fabric also guides the type of knot. A knot should be tight, but never strain the fabric. You are presenting yourself, not tying down an errant pony. Personally, I prefer a half-windsor, as it provides a nicely symmetrical knot and allows easy knotting with different styles and materials.

The Pocket Square will be discussed in a separate blog later this week. For now, you should have enough fun with finding some good ties.

Kevin

Woman on a pier

I haven't blogged in a while because I've had some problem getting into situations that require blogging or complaining in a public forum. But I still have my creative outlets, currently based around character sketches and suchlike. To get back into a semi-regular way of writing things out to the world, I have decided to just post a few of the snippets that float around my brain. Starting with this one.

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There is, as much as anything within a story can be said to be, a woman standing on the edge of a pier looking out over the cold grey water. She is gaunt and pale, her long black skirt rustling in the sea-winds. She is beautiful, or at least she appears beautiful, but one gets the impression she would have been merely pretty if she had not chosen to let herself go thin and whispy in the salty air, if she had had a life lived inside, with kitchen and kids and other words starting with K.
Instead, she stands there looking out over the sea and she personifies the wait, the loneliness and the loss of all who look upon her, and she is glorious. Boys who see her once on holiday with their family foresee and remember the rest of their lives, striving from then onwards to be the type of man to warrant such devotion and to be always awaited by a girl not quite so striking. Girls copy in one glance for ever the image of her shadow, her long skirts and cloudy wrap, and know that they also desire once to stand just so, be still and calm and terrible, and alone, because the loneliness alone implies a period when loneliness was the furthest from anybodies mind and what more to wish for than the certainty that you are or have been not alone?

She is the inspiration for love-songs and country-ballads, for long slow novels that treacle away drizzly Sunday afternoons when the air presses in and the world is filled with boredom and endless rounds of laundry, for she inspires and personifies longing and the final end of passion. She shows us what we all know deep inside. The knowledge that all relationships end in pain through betrayal or death, that all flowers wilt and that all puppies grow old and kittens grow cranky. To see her is to hear violins and low guitars playing in the distance and to remember the drum of heartbeats and the rasp of skin in the present. In her way she is daughter and sister and mother to all women who wear red dresses with buttons down their backs (who expect someone to be there to unbutton them when the dress needs to come down and who never have the time to stop and sit down and consider the future) and women who wear black and who wear sensible shoes and old hats to work in the garden (who remember buttons and red dresses but know that in the end you are best helped with dresses you can undo yourself and a good taste in tea).

Her frailness is not weakness, but strength, for who would attack one so obviously unable to consider retaliation. Her thinness, that would seem unattractive in another (more approachable) woman, is a boon here, no wind can seem to take a hold of her as she stands on the wooden walkway that leads to nothing but clouds and gulls and she seems not to be buffeted or accosted like the day-trippers looking for a photo-moment that only return with inside-out umbrellas and wind-disrupted raincoats. Here around her, we are told, no reality invades. She is lost in memories of the one across the water and no needs or certainties of the world she stands in can infiltrate the world she sees before her.

She is older than you, but not so old, as she met her love when they were young and they both had all the time in the world, and so she reminds you of how you were when you were young and had all that time stretching away in front of you. She is younger than you, but not so young because her love went away from her a while ago, at least long enough to take the colour from her cheeks and eyes and she foretells you of all the empty days ahead, and you think about the length of life and how much time there is left to fill and how few things you can thinks to fill them with.

She inspires sadness by telling you that life is sometimes sad, loneliness by showing you that it can be lonely and the smells around her are of salt water, of wearing clothes a day too long and tears that have been allowed to mould. She inspires joy because there is joy in the knowledge that love touches you, and happiness by showing you that keeping someone in your heart can mean more than all the people around you, the smells around here are crisp and sea-crunchy, of clothes that you put on again because you had so much fun you did not find the time to go home and change, and she smells of salt and sweat and memories of touches and strokes across bare skin.

She turns around, slowly, as you walk towards her. Her long hair streaming in the wind makes it hard to see her face, and her eyes can’t find you at first.