I am not a tie person (and not a suit person either)

[This is a slightly edited comment on Henry Jeffreys's interesting article Why I love wearing a tie. Read it first.]

 

I have never been a tie person. Actually, I haven’t ever been a suit person either. Part of it is that in my youth, a suit, and even more a tie, screamed establishment, and we wouldn’t want to look like that. Then I was a student for a long time, and at my university, the student with a suit (let alone a tie) was a rare animal.

 

Nowadays, in my industry (IT) the people with suit and tie are managers, and everybody else doesn’t want to be mistaken for one — that would be so awkward! Ties are even more rare in academia, where I work now; nobody except maybe higher administrative staff wears a tie, and even the president only on formal occasions.

 

Now in my fifties, I have come to the conclusion that I am and will always be a jeans and sweater (or t-shirt) person. I wear suits on weddings and funerals, but I don’t even own a tie — on my own wedding I wore a bow tie, which in my eyes isn’t quite the same.

 

What Henry Jeffreys says about the tie (with a suit) is certainly true for many, or maybe most, and I don’t want to deny anyone the pleasure of wearing a tie. Looking at the photo (nice one!), I see he obviously feels it. Great!

 

But for me, a suit feels already strange, and with a tie, it would actually feel wrong. I just don’t see the appeal and cannot get around thinking it has no practical purpose — it is a kind of useless appendix, a piece of garment with purely symbolic value, and it says: “I am a tie wearer.” But I am not one.