Is The Necktie Done For?

I spotted an interesting article at the New Yorker entitled "The Knotty Death of the Necktie" by Adam Gopnik. The article discusses the rather abrupt move from ties to casual wear, but is interwoven with the history of the necktie, from its origin to, according to the author, to its demise during the pandemic--a victim of video calls and working from home. And Gopnik seems to have some numbers to back it up:

Between 1995 and 2008, necktie sales plummeted from more than a billion dollars to less than seven hundred million, and, if a fashion historian on NPR is to be believed (and if you can’t believe NPR . . . ), ties are now “reserved for the most formal events—for weddings, for graduations, job interviews.” Post-pandemic, there is no sign of a necktie recovery: a now famous photograph from the 2022 G-7 summit shows the group’s leaders, seven men, all in open collars, making them look weirdly ready for a slightly senescent remake of “The Hangover.” As surely as the famous, supposedly hatless Inauguration of John F. Kennedy was said to have been the end of the hat, and Clark Gable’s bare chest in “It Happened One Night” was said to have been the end of the undershirt, the pandemic has been the end of the necktie.

But, he adds:

Such truths are always at best half-truths. Sudden appearances and disappearances tend to reflect deeper trends, and, when something ends abruptly, it often means it was already ending, slowly. (Even the dinosaurs, a current line of thinking now runs, were extinguished by that asteroid only after having been diminished for millennia by volcanoes.) In “Hatless Jack,” a fine and entertaining book published several years ago, the Chicago newspaperman Neil Steinberg demonstrated that the tale of Kennedy’s killing off the hat was wildly overstated. The hat had been on its way out for a while, and Jack’s hatless Inauguration wasn’t, in any case, actually hatless: he wore a top hat on his way to the ceremony but removed it before making his remarks. Doubtless the same was true of the undershirt that Gable didn’t have on. They were already starting to feel like encumbrances, which might explain why Gable didn’t wear one. And so with the necktie. Already diminishing in ubiquity by the Obama years, it needed only a single strong push to fall into the abyss.

On the other hand, half-truths can extend in the other direction, and so it might prove with the tie. 

    It is true that the necktie has declined in favor, but it has been declining over many decades. While I cannot say for certain--not being quite that old--in watching old movies and television shows, it seems that the necktie was quite ubiquitous in the 1940s, 50s, and much of the 60s for men in the business/office environment, much of retail, and pretty much any job where someone was required to wear a uniform. Even male teachers and professors were expected to wear neckties and jackets. But the styles changed and became much laxer starting in the late 1960s and through the 1970s. What I can remember, however, is how the slovenly 70s were succeeded by a resurgence in more formal business attire in the 1980s. 

    I will agree that at the current time--at least in the area where I reside--business attire has drifted away from a suit or jacket with necktie over the past decade or so. In my case, where even just 5 years ago I used to at least wear a tie and jacket most every day and only switching to a polo shirt for "casual Friday," I now wear "business casual" as my day-to-day attire. But just as the 1980s saw the resurgence of business wear due to increased competition for jobs, we also might see a resurgence as the economy worsens and employers continue forcing people back into the office. And who knows but that ties might become daring and transgressive and fashionable again.