Dutch Royalty, Doctoral Exams, and the Problem of Neckwear.

A few weeks ago when I took the qualifying oral exams for my doctorate, I wore a coat and tie. My friend Jeff pointed out that I failed to use the “Windsor” knot for my tie. I had chosen instead to use the less sophisticated “Four-in-Hand” knot. Snobs find comfort in such small distinctions.

Allow me to explain my choice with a little anecdote from my reckless past.

Several years back when I was an attorney practicing in that frontier town of Tucson, Arizona – an environment hostile to all neckwear other than bolos and nooses – I was obliged to wear a tie in the courtroom.[1] I have never liked wearing ties to work, and in 117 degree heat neckties tend to operate against the best interests of the gullet. In my view, a tie worn to look good while out on the town, or perhaps while lying in repose during your wake, is a matter of taste. But a tie worn for work is an emblem of coercion. Allegiance to the tie suggests, as Paul Fussell has pointed out, middle-class reliability, respectability, and responsibility. One day, after chafing under the oppressive respectability of a zoning enforcement hearing, I emerged from the courtroom and immediately upon entering the crowded elevator, removed my tie. A fellow lawyer commented and I haughtily replied, “the necktie is the yoke of the bourgeois.”

A few days later, while strolling to lunch through the streets of downtown Tucson in my glorious open collared shirt, a man approached me with great excitement. “You’re the fellow from the elevator – the ‘tie is the yoke of the bourgeois’ guy! You’re my hero!”

I can’t take sole responsibility for the heroism. I was inspired in my act by the gallant Prince Claus of Holland, who during an awards ceremony in 1998 untied his tie and threw it to the ground declaring it a snake around the neck which made a prisoner of men. Prince Claus was able to assume this attitude towards conventional fashion without circumspection precisely because he was an aristocrat, no doubt also the reason he was able to interrupt another speech one day and comment, apropos of nothing, on his profound love for his wife, Queen Beatrix.

But, dear reader, you point out that lowbrow people also have a pretty contemptuous attitude towards the tie. The tie-less snob male avoids a coalition of the swilling by refusing to wear clothing of synthetic fibers or any garment advertising any consumable product of any sort. In this way, some of the most admirable snobs I know – college faculty – are able to assert in the workplace their comparative aristocratic freedom from the petty expectations of middle-managers or so-called “executives” as well as their resistance to the commands of beer company couture. Professors, who routinely earn less than carpet peddlers, are thus a noble breed, not one of whom, thank the lord, wore a tie to my orals.

If you must wear a tie, then, I urge you to consider the most cavalier, most breezy and aloof knot, the “Four in Hand.” It tells the world – or at least the world that knows about such matters – that you are really wearing a tie to avoid making others uncomfortable when occasion demands them to wear a tie, not because you care. If you really do care – and how terribly middle-class of you – I’d be glad to tell you someday about what ties you can and can’t wear. Till then, see http://www.tie-a-tie.net/ to learn just what in the hell a Windsor knot is.

And remember, September 6 is Prince Claus’ birthday. Please don’t wear a tie.

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[1] Tucson's popular Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse, for instance, does not allow ties.