Ties

Getting knotted

in style

Nicholas Coleridge

The most striking thing about modern wedding receptions is the garishness of the ties worn by men with their tails. Their clothes are as square as can he in every other respect, but when it comes to ties it's Liberty Hall. Pink ties, psychedelic ties, ties with volcanoes erupting on them, ties of the Prime Minister riding a cock horse; all these are worn by rather conventional young(ish) men at weddings. Of course, since they arc wearing waistcoats, you can only see the knot and the top six inches of the tie; the jazziest bits are concealed behind a column of buttons. Probably this is reassuring.

The point of the garish tie seems to he a way of saying, 'I may have a work-a-day city job, just like most other people at this wedding reception, but this jazzy strip of self-expression dangling around my neck is the genuine me.' Not that every man, by any means, wears garish ties at smart

weddings. You won't, for instance, find men in dodgy jobs like television or jour- nalism or publishing wearing eyesore ties.

They are wearing the most discreet grey ones from New & Lingwood. And what their dull, inoffensive neckpiece is saying is, 'I may have a shamingly high-profile job during the week, but when it comes to a wedding I'm adopting my soberest, most acceptable disguise.'

THERE is another modern mystery about ties. Why is it that, over the last four years, the price of new ties has spiralled? It used to be that when you bought a shirt and three new ties, the cost of the shirt and the cost of the three ties was about the same. Lately, in the same shops, I have seen single ties that cost more than a whole shirt. Clearly ties are not expensive to make; there is less material in a tie than in the arm of a shirt. Nor are the innards of a modern tie, even a Jermyn Street tie, very well done. If you split a Jermyn Street tie bought pre-1980 with a razor blade, you find a good deal of thick padding inside. Modern ties are skimpy, like the intestines of a hungry snake.

The reason ties have become so expen- sive is twofold. If you dry-clean your ties they quickly become mankier than new, so you need to replace them. Increased de- mand has led to hiked prices. All the department stores have vastly increased their range of ties, and the volume of tie sales is said to have tripled. The second reason is that people value good ties much more highly, and are prepared to fork out

for them. People can actually remember, without looking down, which tie they have on that day. And they change their tie more than once during the day. A financial analyst friend keeps six or seven ties in a filing cabinet in his office, which he variously loops around his neck depending on his diary. If he is going into a budget meeting with the financial director of his firm, he wears a dark blue tie with pinhead-sized red spots; if he is about to broadcast his opinion on Channel 4 News (which is what financial analysts seem to do most afternoons) he seizes something more positive made by Ralph Lauren.

THERE are people to whom wearing a tie, any tie, becomes a thermometer for the

FASHION SPECIAL

health of the civilised world. Fifteen years ago a sChoolmaster from New Zealand, Mr Cameron Rose, was just such a person, and when he assumed the important post of Master-in-Charge of our old School Debating Society, he was determined that a team of boys should enter as many local debating contests as possible. One rainy evening our team of four (which also included, as it happened, Mr Wallace Arnold of The Spectator) bicycled to Slough to debate against all corners. When we arrived the New Zealand master looked shocked. 'Some of you boys are tieless!' he exclaimed, reviewing our team. Tut on your ties at once.' We replied that we had not brought ties with us. 'No ties?' The New Zealand beak went white, then had a brainwave. 'You'll have to wear your v-nik jersies bik-ta-frint like polo niks. Then nobody will notice that you're tieless.'

BECAUSE ties are a matter of personal taste 1 will not attempt to recommend tie shops guaranteed to delight everybody. The most popular tie in Britain, according to the Draper's Record, remains the fawn- coloured knitted tie, as worn by geography and biology masters, so I accept that I am in a minority in my enthusiasm for ties from Ralph Lauren, Hilditch & Key, Georgina von Etzdorf (whose swirling abstract ties you see everywhere now) and Hermes. I have a personal aversion to diagonally striped ties that look like regim- ental ties but aren't, and 'humorous' ties with pink elephants or Christmas puddings all over them, but that is neither here nor there. The wearing of old school ties has also, I think, become a little sinister. The signal school ties give off is no longer that of the stolid good egg, but of the con-man. I haven't seen anybody under the age of 40 that I trust wearing a school tie for several years.

AN extension of the school tie, popping up all over the City pages, is the Rich Man's Tie or Tycoon's Tie: grey, embossed silk as thick as bresaola, normally worn with a navy-blue suit. At first glance these look exactly like ties worn by hotel managers, but the coarseness of the fabric disting- uishes them. Lord Hanson and his partner Sir Gordon White are invariably photo- graphed wearing the Tycoon's Tie; so are James Goldsmith, Tiny Rowland and Mohammed Al-Fayed. I have seen Lord Weidenfeld wearing this tie too. It is not altogether clear where these ties are sold. Jermyn Street does a version of them, as does Charvet in Paris, but neither seems quite thick enough, or sufficiently embos- sed, to be the genuine article. It is possible that they are the club ties of some secret fraternity of Savoy Grill lunchers.

IN a society in which ties are now worn by virtually everyone (even exhaust-pipe fit- ters in Cirencester wear ties with their overalls while working under the big end) the notion that ties are in any way socially divisive seems to be on the wane. This, however, is not entirely the case. Driving my car along a narrow street in Fulham last week, I reached stalemate with a delivery van that refused to back, despite the nearness of a passing place to its rear door. I suggested to the driver, very politely, that he might edge back a few yards. The van driver stepped menacingly out of his cabin, revealing muscular tattooed arms. 'I, mate,' he said, 'have been committed. And I'll be committed again when I've finished with you, you c**t. Why is it that ****s in ties are always complete and utter ******* *****?' (and more of the same).