Confessions of a Bow-tie Devotee
Confessions of a Bow-tie Devotee Abow tie, you might think, is actually nothing more than a simple piece of cloth. But don't be fooled. It's a piece of cloth the way Old Glory is: with the power to...
...Mere utility, however, is the least of its virtues...
...It yields delights entirely lost on the world and elevates the pain it imposes to something like pleasure...
...Nowhere more than here, he resembles a child...
...Toothpaste, splattered ink, and various foodstuffs all were attracted to my ties...
...he cried...
...She required no convincing, and I was soothed...
...He retires his ordinary neckties to the back of the closet, unperturbed by the knowledge that the world is on their side...
...All that is beautiful, says Socrates, is difficult, and like many a wearer, I have suffered for my ties...
...Never fear, she said, his blushing may be mistaken for a ruddy tan...
...Except in a few select cities, he explained, bow ties are shunned, and on the West Coast they scarcely exist...
...Now he felt stung, betrayed...
...Allies in a cause, fellow outcasts all, they have traveled together where necktie-wearers never go...
...There I was, seeking sartorial redemption, when she appeared: a woman friend from school...
...How could you...
...Let me, as a small corrective, count a few of the benefits bestowed by the bow...
...His motivation flags...
...It's a piece of cloth the way Old Glory is: with the power to stir passions...
...With a bow tie, form and function merge...
...She, female and fastidious, would understand...
...I explained to her the slob's predicament...
...His disappointment was sore...
...She added that bow ties are the most maligned of apparel and need defenders—stout souls to ride the bowsprit for bow-tie wearers everywhere...
...Surely, I argued, the embarrassment of stains exceeds the stigma of the bow...
...Yet there's no evading it, and in the end, it is settling for a tangled knot that liberates the wearer...
...It's simple without being mean—the very definition of elegance...
...But I would not be moved...
...Were the world a saner place, the bow tie would naturally prevail in an era of miniaturization and financial cutbacks...
...His warning was blunt...
...Neil tried to enlighten me...
...This tying operation, with its tucks and folds, is like making up a bed around one's neck...
...Christopher Stump...
...They conjure up images of smoky men's clubs and owlish antiquarians, of something faintly dainty that runs counter to the "California spirit...
...You wear bow ties...
...Like them, he has endured...
...like him, they have braved the loss of dear friends...
...Don't imagine I'll soon forget the trauma of attempting to tie one for the first time...
...I was not just unrepentant but deeply at peace, and I attribute this largely to a chance encounter that surprised me in the act of buying my first bow tie...
...I should defend them in print...
...Yet it is also practical and cheap...
...Now, although I know that their detractors will never be silenced, I shall wield my pen...
...For all its difficulties, the bow tie rewards its acolytes...
...the clumsiness that has dogged him for life concentrates in his fingertips...
...Bow ties—take it from me— inspire love or hate...
...The simple fact is, Neil's warnings came too late...
...Our friendship—nurtured once amid the bric-a-brac of Filene's Basement, where we suffered shoppers' shell shock in pursuit of ties to wear at job interviews—was being tested...
...His frustration mounts...
...Through perseverance, he finds the bliss that comes from mastering the knot...
...You'd be a pariah...
...Eyeing fellow wearers in the street, the devotee nods and smiles...
...Here was sympathy, I thought...
...Back then, we had found some fairly good-looking ties, and we had both gotten jobs, he on the West Coast, I on the East...
...His hands, as if grasping the strings of a bib, pull up lame...
...Owing to its small size and low cost, the gentleman can always carry a spare and look formal in a pinch...
...My fashion sense had lapsed, he claimed, and with it all chance of future success...
...I should defend them, she said...
...The novice balks at learning this new rope trick...
...We who wear them are a nation unto ourselves, with a devotion to the bow that no outsider can plumb...
...I discovered as much after my conversion, when I spoke with my college friend Neil...
...In the '60s, ties were narrower and made smaller targets, but skinny ties no longer were an option...
...She reminded me that much depends on the wearer, whose confidence will silence any tease...
...That would never go over in LA...
Vol. 3 • December 1997 • No. 15
