Friday, Aug. 14, was a seminal day for me. For the first time in my long life, I boarded a flight without a necktie. In seven decades of flying, I have never done that.
Truth is, I felt underdressed on the flight from Providence, R.I., to Jacksonville, Fla., as if I were wearing my pajamas at the White House. Oh, the shame of it.
Men don’t wear neckties anymore. No matter that they look incomplete in a suit with an open-neck shirt, as though they hadn’t finished dressing.
Also with age, the neck loses any appeal it might have had. Nora Ephron, brilliant journalist, author, filmmaker and sometime wife of Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein, wrote a book titled “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” about the ravages of age.
Anyway, gentlemen, you looked a lot better with a necktie than with the neck open in a shirt clearly designed to be closed. A pocket square adds color, but also draws attention to the egregious omission: something around the neck.
Sitting tieless on the aisle was a traumatic, maybe even a life-changing experience for me — this sense of being partly naked in a very public place. I was wearing a blazer, shirt, long pants and socks, not the weekend-at-the-beach garb. Even so, my self-respect was in the tank.
I will say without hesitation that the necktie is a useless piece of clothing, unless you use it to wipe your eyeglasses — a no-no. It doesn’t keep you warm or keep rain off. You could use it to tie up a burglar after you have subdued him. Or you could use it as a dog leash, especially if you are walking the dog on Park Avenue.
Day in and day out, the necktie, no matter how fine the silk, how great the designer’s name, or how overpriced this strip of cloth may be, has no purpose besides acting as a security blanket for your correspondent.
I had an English master in secondary school who turned up one day with an old necktie holding up his trousers. He averred that this was an old English tradition.
Indeed so. At English public schools (private in British tradition), boys sometimes wore neckties in lieu of belts, and it was tolerated. Sometimes this was because a belt had been lost or failed, or the lad was just seeing whether he could get away with it.
From time to time, quite a few men went in for the tie that upholds.
Fred Astaire, that master of urbanity, often danced around with a necktie through his belt loops, knotted at the hip in a dashing way. Don’t try that at home — his eclectic-dancing style, that is.
I first wore a necktie and learned to tie it in primary school. It was part of the first day and remained a part of every day until I left school, got a suit on credit, and launched myself into the grown-up world — with just one necktie.
If a boy in my senior school were to wear his uniform without a necktie, he would be summoned by the headmaster for “four of the best.” If you aren’t familiar with the English nomenclature, that is four strokes with the cane, administered by the headmaster himself. Check that out with a Freudian scholar, if you like.
These days I favor bow ties, thanks to Tucker Carlson. Years ago, before he joined Fox and became part of the bric-à-brac of American politics, he wore a bow tie. When I was going to interview him on television, I donned one and, as they say, the rest is history.
The makeup artist said it made me look sexy, and I am susceptible to suggestions like that. All these years later, it is bow ties for me — even though women and men say they love my bow tie because it reminds them of their grandfathers.
Bow ties can’t hold up your pants, but they do hoist your self-esteem. I wonder why Tucker doesn’t wear them anymore.
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