To tie or not to tie


What does the decline of the necktie say about our lives today? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Jeff Breckenmaker and two fellow county adult probation and parole officers are grateful that America is more casual these days. All are 30 or under and all are tie-less on a 90-degree day as they head for lunch near Central Market. For them, to tie or not to tie comes down to comfort.

"I just don't like something around my neck, to be honest with you," says Breckenmaker, 30.

Says Tien Duong, 23, "It's just an extra thing to put on."

Not far away, at his graphic design business on Grant Street, Nick Setthachayanon feels differently. He likes ties and wears one often.

"I wish people bothered to dress up and look somewhat professional," says the 30-year-old. "Some things are missing these days. Khakis and a polo is the standard professional dress. That's a little disappointing."

Adam Fox also is a fan of ties. Though he sells high-end jeans and graphic T-shirts for a living at the Dude Shop on North Queen Street, he loves to wear a tie when he goes out with friends.

The death of ties, he says, "is part of everything becoming more informal. I think it fits in with you could be at a really nice restaurant and some idiot could be on their cell phone talking. Everything is becoming much more casual. I don't think it's a good thing."

Larry Helicher, who sells and wears ties at his upscale downtown clothing store TMB, says a tie carries power.

His proof: whenever he goes into Circuit City and is wearing a tie, he gets great service, he says. Or other customers come up to him and start asking where the flat-screens are.

"People think I'm the manager," he says.

"People are going to listen to you more if you look successful," Helicher says, "and you look more successful if you have a suit and tie on."

That's the reason, Helicher says, that both bosses and summer interns wear ties. It's also the reason, in a flagging economy, that more men will begin wearing ties again, he believes.

In county courtrooms, male judges, lawyers, detectives and other courtroom personnel all wear ties. If he's smart, a man whose fate lies in the hands of a jury wears one too, says Lancaster County President Judge Louis J. Farina.

"I suspect the jury will judge people on how they look," he says.

"In the formality of courtrooms, deliberative bodies, clothing does have something to say about how you are approaching the proceedings," he says.

Even those who don't wear ties agree they carry a message. Some don't want to send it.

Breckenmaker's probation and parole clients, people going through the criminal justice system, may not be as open with him if he wears a tie, he says.

"They think you are uppity, and you don't really care about them," he says.

Sociologists have tons of theories about ties, touching on civility, the meaning of work, uniforms and even phallic symbols.

Ties used to be a sign of social and economic class — businessmen wore one; factory workers did not, says Jerome Hodos, sociology professor at Franklin & Marshall University.

The fact that many men choose not to wear a tie these days does not mean those class distinctions have disappeared, he says, but maybe now are signaled by your house or car instead.

Men underestimate the effect of a tie, says Andrea Siegel, a sociologist and author of "Open and Clothed: For the Passionate Clothes Lover."

"People think they can be cas(ual) everywhere and it ain't so," she says.

Americans naively believe this is an egalitarian country, and that people shouldn't judge others by their clothing or appearance, Siegel says. At the same time, this is a nation that avidly watches "America's Top Model" on TV, reads "People" magazine and is fixated on looks.

"To say it shouldn't be important or shouldn't bother us, that's very nice if you live up in a tree," she says. "If you're living in America today, you're not talking about America as America is."

"What is a tie?" Siegel asks, then answers her question: "It is a phallic symbol wrapped around a man's neck. It celebrates masculinity It celebrates men."

Black Hawk Hancock, a 36-year-old sociology professor at DePaul University in Chicago, wonders if the death of ties signals the death of civilization.

The colorfully named academic quotes a line from Ian Fleming about the spy world's classiest dresser, James Bond: "Bond mistrusted anyone who tied his tie with a Windsor knot."

He sighs.

"Only a handful of men would even know what a Windsor knot was these days," says Hancock, who sometimes wears a tuxedo on a date, just for fun. (For all you open-collar slobs out there, a Windsor knot is a wide, double slip-knot.)

"My grandma — she's 94 God bless her — to this day she still gets dressed in makeup and jewelry every day, as if she's going to go out to lunch with her friends," he says.

"There's something old school about that because even if you don't leave the house, you don't sit around in your pajamas in case someone shows up at the door. I find that romantic, good manners, a sense of civility — something that we've lost somewhere along the line."


Staff writer Cindy Stauffer can be reached at cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024.