I passed a street vendor today who was selling silk ties from a folding table he’d set up on the corner of Park Avenue South and 23rd St. “Real Silk, $1 Each,” his hand-scribbled sign said. Yes, I thought. As opposed to that other kind of silk. But then I remembered something I learned many years ago. There is silk and then there is silk. I guess real silk is the best kind.

Not only were this vendor’s ties god-awful ugly, but their presentation—if piled in a cardboard box held together with duck tape could be called a presentation—screamed out, “Cheap Ties For Sale.”

While waiting for the light to change I watched a man pawing though the tangled mess of neckwear. He reminded me of one of those people who are always looking through trash cans to see what kind of little treasures they can find. What kind of man buys a tie off the street, I wondered? Certainly not a Wall Street make-it-happen kind of guy or a CEO big shot.

A tie says a lot more about its wearer than merely his economic situation. A woman is often said to be able to size a man up by his shoes. A quick glance at his feet tells her if he is a winner, a loser, hip or a nerd. I do the same thing with ties. I can’t help it.

As the light changed and I started to cross the street, I took a final glance back at the vendor and his one lone customer. Then I started thinking about ties. I’ve been thinking about them all day.

It occurred to me that I could fairly precisely chronicle the events of my life by simply reviewing all the different ties I have worn. This is a great revelation. I can now throw out all those old Day-Timers I’ve been saving. From now on whenever I want to recall what I was doing on a particular date I will just look in my closet.

The first time I put on a tie—or more correctly, had one put on me—was to go to church when I was a child. In those days people still got dressed up to go to worship services. We were, after all, the guests of God and in His house he expected us to wear our Sunday best. This event was always preceded by my having to take a bath on Saturday night, whether I needed one or not.

My singular tie in those early days was one of those little clip-on numbers. It wasn’t real silk, though. I’m not even sure if it was real polyester. What I remember is that it was stiff and scratchy. But it sure as hell was convenient, as I would come to appreciate later in life when I started wearing the Real McCoy.

A clip-on tie is well-suited to the temperament of a young boy. It is one of his first experiences with conformity and the rules that will forever be imposed upon him by society. It was the first rock in my shoe. The great thing about a clip-on, though, was that it was something you could easily get out of when no one was looking. Just sort of snap that little bugger off during a boring sermon and snap it back on again as you marched out the door and shook the preacher’s hand. Clip-on conformity. I know a few people today who still operate like that.

Obviously, my clip-on era was before I learned how to actually tie a tie. But before graduating to that next level of fashion adroitness I still had a couple of stops to make along the way. It didn’t take too long for me to develop at least a modicum of interest in what hung around my neck.

My grandfather and some other men I admired, like Roy Rogers, wore cowboy, or “bolo,” ties and it wasn’t long before I acquired a couple of them as well. More complex than the clip-on, the bolo was still an easy to use instrument of neck torture. Although you had to actually noose the thing around your neck, the “slider” was simple enough to operate and was actually interchangeable with other bolos. The bolo allowed me to try on a new personality—and perhaps even to express a little non-conformity. Non-conformity is important to an eight year old.

Speaking of sliders, there was one other tie that I wore in my pre-Four-in-Hand days. It may not be exactly correct to call it a tie, but it was, indeed, a piece of neckwear that those of us who were Cub Scouts were most proud to wear. That was the Scout bandana. It went around your neck, but over the collar of your uniform, instead of under the shirt’s collar. A triangular piece of bright gold cloth with a wolf logo on it, it was folded and worn in such a way that the two narrow ends were draped down the front of your snappy blue uniform shirt—like a tie. A gold metallic slider with yet another emblem of a wolf held the two strands of cloth together at your neck.

Flag-waving patriotism was an essential part of wearing the Cub Scout uniform. Every Wednesday I wore my uniform—that being the day my den had its weekly meeting after school. In those days we still said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag every morning before class started. As a man in uniform, instead of holding my hand over my heart like my civilian classmates, I honored the flag with a two-finger salute over my right eyebrow.

The older Boy Scouts used a three-finger salute, but I didn’t go on to become a Boy Scout. I don’t know whether the Explorers—the highest echelon of Scouting—used a four-finger salute or not. It seems logical, though. But one thing I do know is that the U. S. Army uses a five-finger salute. I learned that very well. Every time I saluted an officer I would get a mental flashback to my Cub Scout uniform days with my bandana tie doing my two-finger salute. It all seemed so silly as an adult. Most of the officers I encountered deserved only a one-finger salute, in my opinion, and you can guess which finger that would be.

A tie takes on rich new meaning once a boy learns how to tie it himself. I don’t suppose learning to knot his first Four-in-Hand or Windsor is exactly a rite of passage, but it does mark a small milestone in his personal development. As an event, it’s more comparable to learning to use the big potty or writing his name in script for the first time. It’s an achievement the whole family can make a fuss over.

By the time I was sixteen and until I graduated from college, the necktie was a staple of my wardrobe. I worked in a couple of men’s clothing stores after classes and on weekends. I thought I was pretty cool in those days. I once even modeled in a fashion show. My store discounts allowed me to buy lots of ties, if not much of anything else.

Yes, my ties helped me stay cool. Even on days when I didn’t work at the store, I would occasionally wear one of them to school just to impress the girls. It was quite the rage one year, for example, for guys to wear a skinny-assed tie to class with penny loafers and no socks. When I bought my first car I found it was cool to take off my tie at the end of a date and hang it over the rear-view mirror. The girls ate it up. Yes, I was Mr. Cool. But my relationship with ties was soon to cool as well.

After college I found myself in the real world of work and ties quickly became the symbol of the establishment. The only problem was I didn’t consider myself part of the establishment. I was in the business of producing TV commercials, corporate slide shows and other such worthwhile media. Obviously it was an imposition to ask an artistic person like myself to put on a tie. Ties were for the boss and the sales reps. The only time I now put one on was when going to see the client. The client’s office had replaced God’s House as the place to wear your glad rags. But it wasn’t long before I, too, would become a man in the gray flannel suit.

The business suit. It’s the ball and chain of the corporate American male. Women can express their personalities by wearing all combinations of colors and accessories (although, some women will argue that, in New York City anyway, black is the only color). But the men all dress the same—unless they’re in one of those “100 Best Companies” that have casual dress codes and mission statements.

Perhaps it’s a throwback to the earlier days of our military when our armed forces were all men and they had to dress alike so that you could tell the soldiers from the farmers. I don’t know. But the only way the company man can express himself in his dress today is by his choice of tie. Here again, there are stages of growth.

The business tie separates the men from the boys. There’s a line that is crossed from which there is no turning back once a male enters the work world. No clip-ons or bolos anymore, unless you’re Colonel Sanders or Gerry Spence. You’d better have your act together. This is not the time to be asking for help tying your tie, unless perhaps you are wearing a tuxedo.

Selecting the right business tie and wearing it with aplomb is a skill that can be developed on the job much like brown-nosing or fuzzy math. It helps if you have a little bit of talent in this area to begin with. I had some small bit of talent already, because of my clothing store background. But it still took me quite a few years to reach my full potential when it came to wearing the organizational tie with confidence and competence.

The first phase I went through was my “Inert Colors and Cut-rate Silk” phase. This phase is analogous to Stephen Covey’s “Unconscious Incompetent” management model. The Unconscious Incompetent, you may recall, is that moron who is so incompetent that he doesn’t even realize how incompetent he is. Applied to tie wearing, this model describes the fellow who wears a boring, bland and totally obsequious tie. It’s the “blend in and don’t make a scene tie.” Their dull muted patterns and uninspired regimental stripes are ubiquitous in the lower and middle ranks of corporations all over the world. My own ties in this period may not have been made of polyester anymore, but they weren’t “real” silk, either. And they definitely didn’t call attention to little old me.

It wasn’t too long, however, before I became painfully conscious of my tie incompetence. I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t quite figure out what. I started noticing that some of the older guys were wearing flashier, bolder patterns. I bought a couple of those and set out to show my superiors that at least I wasn’t in the dark when it came to ties. Colorful, bright and snappy, I was on my way to being tie savvy. Yet I sensed that I was still doing something wrong—or at least hadn’t gotten it totally right yet. I needed to take it to the next level.

Going from a Conscious Incompetent tie wearer to a Conscious Competent one is a major leap. Many men never make it. It involves a total re-education. It means stepping back and, for many of us, really learning for the first time the principles of dressing for success. And that usually means spending more money. Remember the street vendor and his real silk ties?

But money can’t buy taste, and that’s where so many guys get it wrong. They run out and buy the latest designer tie (suit, shirt, shoes, whatever) thinking that is going to give them the panache they’re looking for. But their taste is all in their mouths. Because they haven’t learned the rule of Two Plains and a Fancy. There are other rules of fashion, but this one especially applies to ties.

What the rule of Two Plains and a Fancy says is that of the three items—shirt, tie and suit—two of them should always be plain (solid) and the third should be fancy (patterned). So if you wear a solid suit and a solid shirt, you should not also wear a solid tie. Select a tie with a pattern. If, on the other hand, you wear a striped shirt, you should wear a solid tie with it—and a solid suit. And finally, if you wear a glen plaid suit, you should wear a solid shirt and a solid tie. Simple, heh? Then why don’t more men get it?

When a guy does make that giant leap to Conscious Competence he still runs the risk of over-doing his new-found fashion confidence. You’ve seen the type. Having mastered the rules, he now indulges himself with designer cravats of satiny charmeuse and subtle jacquards. He gets himself some suspenders and a hundred dollar haircut. He has his nails manicured and trades in his Old Spice for Chanel Pour Homme. He has his shirts (if not his suits) custom made.

The problem is he is just so obvious in his fashion statement. Sure, everything is correct and in the best of taste. But he’s always a little over the top and seems to be saying, “Hey, look at me. Look how well dressed I am.” Take the custom made shirts, for example. He just has to have his initials put on them. Not because he’s afraid the laundry will lose them, but because he wants everyone to know that he’s wearing a custom made shirt.

What the Consciously Competent dresser still doesn’t realize is that no one gives a shit. Anyone who wears custom-made shirts can instantly recognize the same on someone else, with or without initials. And anyone who can’t is not the person you want to be trying to impress. You think Prince Charles has his Saville Row shirts monogrammed? I doubt it. He knows who he is and so does everyone else.

So what’s left? Meet the Unconscious Competent tie wearer. This guy is so cool he doesn’t even know he’s cool. He doesn’t even have to think about it. He gives about as much thought to picking his exquisite neckwear as the rest of us give to picking our noses. He knows how to tie more than one knot and will automatically make the one that best compliments the texture and weight of a particular tie’s silk. Ironically, because he is so secure in his sense of fashion he can even buy a real silk tie on the street for a dollar and pull off wearing it.

So I guess I answered my own question. What kind of man buys a tie on the street for a dollar? Two kinds. Those who don’t care about ties and those who don’t have to care about them.

© Copyright 2002, Richard Bradley. All rights reserved

Notes: The phrase “Two Plains and a Fancy” was coined by Mortimer Levitt, founder of Custom Shop Shirtmakers, in his excellent book on men’s fashion, The Executive Look: How to Get It—How to Keep It. Can you guess who the actor is in the picture at the top of the page?