Saturday, October 18, 2008

Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

Looks like Ralph Lauren (l) and Limi Feu (r) will have ladies lassoed at the neck this Spring.

My favorite anecdote about a tie involves a three year-old boy named Brandon. One day his well-suited, corporate-honcho Papa picked him up from the day care center I worked at in college. Brandon took one look at his father's neck and said, "Dad, why are you wearing a leash?" His father looked at him and said, "I have no idea."

Turns out Brandon's Daddy can blame the Croats. According to the Wiki entry for necktie, a group of Croat soldiers came to France with brightly colored fabric knotted around their necks in the 1660's, which were apparently a throwback to the Roman tradition of singers wearing scarves to help warm their vocal chords. The neckwear so impressed flamboyant monarch Louis XIV that he made cravats part of the royal dress code. Cravats eventually took off and morphed into the modern tie. So there you go guys, now you know why you have to wear a leash. Well, sort of.

Ladies, if you're going to be rocking this slightly andro style, you're going to need to brush up on your tie tying skills. Here's a semi-creepy instructional video that'll help get you started.

Doesn't this look like it was produced by the same people that make the airline safety videos? Love the Bob Ross style painting in the background. Also, that guy blinks precious little. What is he staring at over there?

Oh, and apparently some people find ties tasty. Mmmmm...

Images: Marcio Madeira for Style.com

1 comment:

Rahul said...

Oh my God - I think this is the greatest post in the history of blogs.