Don’t get me started on neckties and bowties and the other cultural accoutrement that have evolved from practical usage (keeping the collar fastened around the neck before the advent of the button) into impractical torture device (keeping all of one’s blood in the head and thus causing physcotic I-May-Be-Having-an-Aneurysm episodes).  If you squint at my tiny illustrated photograph, above and to the left, you will notice a tie.  You will also notice that the smile on my face looks a lot like the death mask of a man who would rather die than wear that thing.  For some terrific reason, though, the tie is back.

Necktie sales may have foundered in the decade or more since the words “casual Friday” entered men’s vocabularies, but in the last year or two, stylish men in their 20s and early 30s have embraced the old four-in-hand as a style statement – that is, as long as it is an optional one. Even with tie sales among older age groups uniformly down, sales to men 18 to 34 were up more than 13 percent, to $343 million from $303 million, between March 2006 and March 2007, according to NPD Group, which tracks clothing sales and trends.

The issue of the tie, and of fashion in general, is too complex and murky for one post to treat.  Bill Blass, one prince of men’s fashion, has said that he loves the tie, but that the tie will eventually have to go.  It’s too impractical, too uncomfortable in most situations, etc.  If it’s going to die, can’t we just kill it now?