Last Call: Fit to Be Tied
Malenic, Marina
Fit to Be Tied by Marina Malenic AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE CROA'F~ tie company declares: "To visit Croatia and not to take back a tie is like visiting Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower." The...
...BUT ~,k~?qY PROFESSORS AND INTELLECTUALS seem to prefer the bow tie to the long tie...
...The importance placed on the tie is a matter of national pride, not of mere eccentricity...
...THIS FIRST BALKAN COUP WAS A GRADUAL process (the "Powder Keg" of the twentieth century was still latent in the seventeenth...
...recalls years ago asking a prominent neoconservative where a young conservative might have a quality tie made...
...According to Saul Bellow, Allan Bloom concurred, spending far beyond his means in the shop-before publication of The Closing of the American Mind made his extravagance less of a difficulty...
...In Frenzy, the misogynist Bob Rusk turns the presumed symbol of female domination into a weapon against the dominators...
...By inverting that same logic, Alfred Hitchcock conceived of a serial killer more terrifying than Norman Bates...
...From there the tie, in its numerous incarnations, conquered the world...
...The superficial interpretation is that the tie, like almost everything else, is a phallic symbol...
...As the Necktie Strangler pries the fingers of one of his victims, stiffwith rigor morris, from his diamond-encrusted tie pin in order to avoid incrimination, Hitchcock alludes to the woman's unrelenting hold over him, even in death...
...Recently having emerged from Communism and war, Croatia is one of the poorer countries in Europe, but this fact would not be obvious if one attempted to estimate per capita income based strictly on the quality of its citizens' neckwear...
...R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...If they were good enough for Churchill, it seemed, they would do just as well for American conservatives...
...With dress-down Friday giving way to casual Thursday, they say it won't be long before the whole work week skids down the slippery slope to disheveldom...
...MANTy HAVE LAMENTED THE RECENT demise of neckwear as a decline in formality, and civility in general...
...This little known meeting is actually of great historical significance, as the Croats infiltrated the upper echelons of the European power structure, and set in motion a plan to conquer Western civilization--albeit unwittingly...
...The squirming boy whose mother chokes him with his first tie will be the first to agree that, as a woman dictates, so a man accommodates...
...While Richelieu no doubt discussed Great Power strateg 3, with the ban, the soldiers' traditional dress piqued the interest of the fashionconscious Sun King...
...And an even more important question: Whatever will we give Dad for Father's Day...
...82 June 2000 _9 The American Spectator...
...Does this fading of the gentleman's ultimate Old World accessory foretell the End of Civility...
...VISITING THE COURT OF LOUIS RIM in a show of support for the French King and for the man behind the Man, Cardinal Richelieu, a group of about six thousand Croatian mercenaries, led by their ban, arrived in Paris on horseback in 1636...
...But an in-depth reading might yield a subtle female domination theory-woman's civilizing influence over man under the guise of constricting fashion...
...Richelieu certainly knew that power over man is achieved by slowly tightening the noose around his neck, but he underestimated the potential for fashion and custom to covertly achieve what blunt coercion cannot...
...He noticed the scarves tied around the men's necks, the ends of the cloth draping elegantly across their white shirts...
...FROM THE NOOSE TO THE LEASH, the symbolic significance of the necktie has been speculated on by many a Freudian psychiatrist...
...The Boston Bow Tie Company lists as number five of its Top Ten Reasons to Wear a Bow Tie: "Bow Ties are an expression of individualism and refinemenU' Be that as it may, however, reasons two ("It is difficult to soil a Bow Tie while dining") and eight ("Most people are impressed with someone who can actually tie a Bow Tie") are even more compelling...
...Made of various fabrics, from the coarse material used by the common soldiers, to the fine cottons and silks of the officers, the new clothing item delighted Louis...
...Daniel Patrick Moynihan assured him that Turnbull & Asset were the finest outfitters in London, and thus the world...
...After Louis launched the eravate (from the French Croates for Croatian), Charles II brought the cravat to England upon his return from exile...
...Many newer companies have no dress code, aware that fashion regulations are a deterrent for younger workers, and many older businesses are following the informal trend...
...While the tie worn by the Croatian soldier was more a practical part of his wardrobe (it defended him from cold, dust, and sometimes sword slashes), the courts of Louis and Charles managed to transform the functional item into the most useless of fashion accessories...
...FORTUNATELY MOST MEN HAVE made their peace with the dictates of fashion and have, throughout the twentieth century, embraced the tie as a symbol of refinement and civilization...
...The Croata company's three men's boutiques in Zagreb are all but shrines to the necktie...
Vol. 33 • June 2000 • No. 5
