The tie is going the way of jabots, stocks, ascot cravats | Peter Goers

Whether we like it or not, history is having its say on an item of clothing that used to be part of the uniform for a well-dressed man, writes Peter Goers.

Nowadays, in most workplaces, every day is casual day. Blokes no longer dress up to go to work which means – no tie.

The necktie is dead. Long live the necktie.

We live in an an era of the casualisation of work and the casualisation of the fashion of the workplace.

Life is a search for a uniform – clothes we feel that suit us, our lifestyle and the image we present to the world.

Society changes. Fashion changes. Sometimes people’s apparel seems disrespectful to others. Comfort has become all.

Peter Goers at The Book of Mormon at Adelaide Festival Centre’s Festival Theatre. Picture: Kelly Carpenter

We used to dress to travel now you fly somewhere looking at people’s bare legs and thongs or trakky daks.

The recent gala opening of the excellent Miss Saigon was a chance to put on the dog and some did.

Opening nights at the theatre used to feature the hoi polloi in fur stoles, long gowns and dinner suits, but now blokes turn up in shorts and thongs.

I’m nostalgic for glamour and the sense of occasion but who cares?

It really doesn’t matter what people wear to the theatre as long as they put their bums on seats.

The tie is going the way of the safari suit, long socks with shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and tie, double denim and stonewashed jeans. To the nearest op shop.

The necktie is disappearing much as earlier neck wear such as jabots, stocks, ascot cravats and bolo ties (a Tex Mex cord joined by an ornamental clasp usually involving turquoise) also disappeared.

Ties were once ubiquitous. I knew men whom I never ever saw without a tie and I was convinced they wore a tie with their pyjamas.

It all changed with funerals.

Fifteen years ago I went to a funeral in Adelaide and was the only man wearing a tie and that same night I went to a play in Bordertown and I was the only man not wearing a tie.

Now even country blokes have eschewed their ties.

A formal occasion no longer requires a tie. I remember being vaguely shocked when politicians stopped wearing ties on TV some 20 years ago.

Have adolescent boys lost the rite of passage of their dads showing them how to tie a tie in a foggy bathroom mirror?

Hopefully there’s still the ritual of being shown how to shave, turning bum fluff into whiskers.

We can blame Croatian mercenaries for popularising the necktie in the 17th Century, and, incredibly, there are 85 known ways to tie a tie - 85 knots.

I can’t even do a Windsor or half Windsor knot, just the regular knot.

The old school tie which dominates our society is still extant but without the tie.

It’s now an existential tie and even more clandestine. And even worse. I knew of a student at St Peter’s College who requested that the school tie be silk.

Changing fashions demanded thin, medium and very wide ties. The tie clip and the clip-on tie and the pre-tied tie (with elastic collar) have long gone as have those appalling novelty ties of the 80s and 90s.

I wore bow ties when hosting horror movies on TV in the 80s and they almost cost more than I earned. I own more than 100 ties and I wear only five – occasionally – a Port Magpies tie of the classic design, an Adelaide Club tie (I was given as a joke) and I wear to annoy actual members, a historic Royal Show tie given to me by the esteemed Howard Bone, a long black tie and my favourite tie which has an intractable stain.

I miss ties but I don’t miss ties that bind and choke. Trump has put us off red ties which looks, appropriately, like a long red slavering, lying tongue on him.

Ties may come back into fashion. Or not.

Let’s not get tied in knots by a bit of useless decoration which often gets in the way between food and mouth.

Originally published as The tie is going the way of jabots, stocks, ascot cravats | Peter Goers