Irish playwright Oscar Wilde famously said that a well-tied tie is the first serious step in life. My how times (and ties) have changed.
I remember a moment in my kindergarten days when my mother insisted I wear a tie. At the end of year awards ceremony, boys were told to wear ties, so Mom went to the downtown Denman-Alford department store and bought my first tie. The polyester mini tie with big paisleys required no tying technique. Instead, you clipped and went. I hated that bright red accessory, which dolled me up and, in my view, transformed me into a clown. Furious, I wore the faux tie a grand total of one time.
Determined to never be embarrassed again, I avoided all neck accessories until junior high school when boys had to wear ties to the dance formal. In the late 70’s, wide ties fortunately were on the way out. Unfortunately, skinny knitted square end ties were all the rage. Though a Boy Scout, I had no training on neck tie tying, and my blue collar father owned a grand total of two ties. Dad had fits trying to tie a half-Windsor knot on my neck. He resorted to kneeling behind me looking in a mirror while he fought with buttons, collar, and a wiggling subject. My recollection is we spent an hour trying to get all parts of my clothing in symmetry. We never succeeded. The tail of the tie ended up longer than the front, so we tucked the tail in my pants, and I had to avoid standing too straight for the dance photo.
That fiasco prompted Dad to learn the art of tie tying, which he insisted on handing down to his son. (How does one hand down a skill one does not know?) For an entire Saturday, we practiced a full Windsor, and to my knowledge, I never tied a full Windsor again.
In college, my ties were thrown in piles, wrinkled, and most had ripped keeper loops, the little slit in the back, requiring last minute safety pins. I ventured into wearing a bow tie while in law school, probably because a few professors donned them. I ditched the bow tie look when my boss said to never trust a man in a bow tie. I do think he was on to something there. In my early professional legal career, I wore a neck tie to work every day. Over the years, tie wearing became less routine, and in the Covid pandemic, non-existent. Most attorneys never wear a tie, unless going to court.
To look sharp, I now have well made silk ties from Italy and England. I enjoy selecting color patterns to match my suits, and I buck the trend by wearing a tie any chance I get. I can tie a tie with my eyes closed, and my wife says my stained ones suggest I eat with my eyes closed. I’m not sure Oscar Wilde would approve of my tie-tying abilities, my kid clip-ons or those knitted ones, but I do think a well dressed (and serious) attire includes a necktie. I will always wear a tie when given the chance, as tie wearing is a part of who I am. As Oscar Wilde himself once wrote, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”
Clark Hicks is a lawyer who lives in Hattiesburg. His email is clark@hicksattorneys.com.
