Why you should stick your neck out and put on a tie this season.

What is the point of a tie? A Zen riddle of a question. That we still wrap these peculiar strips of silk, cashmere and linen around our necks is a glorious testimony to our need to express ourselves through clothing. When it comes down to it, the tie does not really have a practical function (unless you’re the kind of person that simply can’t bear the sight of buttons), yet in terms of style it still functions like a full stop on the end of sentence: a final definitive flourish that says, “I am now (well) dressed”.

We say this now because the tie seems to be somewhat under threat – even in the most formal environments. Mr John Bercow has recently declared ties will no longer be mandatory for MPs speaking in the UK House of Commons, while in France, Mr Jean-Luc Mélenchon and members of his left wing Insoumise party have also renounced the tie during parliamentary sessions.

“You see it here in Mayfair all the time,” says Mr Dean Gomilsek-Cole, the head of product at Turnbull & Asser. “Guys wearing suits without ties. It’s the majority now.” However, while they may no longer be de rigueur for business wear or public life, Mr Gomilsek-Cole believes that ties are still essential for when you want to look your very best. And doubly essential for a suit.  “Always wear a tie with a suit,” he says. “Otherwise it just looks as though there’s something missing. No tie is as bad as a bad tie. If you haven’t made the effort, how can I be expected to trust you with my money, my vote, or if you’re a doctor, your diagnosis?”

Of course, part of the reason that people have begun to shun the tie is that it’s been perceived as a symbol of corporate conformity – something that’s been relatively uncool since the 1990s (think of Soho House, which opened in 1995 and it’s “no suits” dress code). It’s certainly an attitude that persists in many prominent places. “The textile phallus is still with us,” wrote the artist Mr Grayson Perry in an October 2016 edition of The Guardian. “It represents an image of what is considered “normal”, but the tie is such a blatant piece of symbolism that it really needs to be questioned. It goes with the Victorian principle of the stiff upper lip, which applies to men who were bred in public schools to rule the Empire.”

But is this assessment 100 per cent accurate? In 2017, with everyone so thoroughly under the thumb of enormous tech companies, it could be argued that role uniform of the evil overlords is more along the lines of a shapeless hoodie, an ironic slogan T-shirt and a pair of saggy chinos. “People are going tieless to conform to a corporate image,” says Mr Gomilsek-Cole. “It’s quite obnoxious in a way. It’s saying, ‘I’m so rich I don’t have to bother.’” Given this context, perhaps it’s time to look at the tie again as a flourish of individuality, says Mr Gomilsek-Cole. “We find that it’s artistic and creative people who dress up now. We make ties and pocket squares for David Hockney.”

In fact, the tie actually has a long and storied history as a canvas for artists, an expression not just of old-school social mores, but of elegant eccentricity. The Vorticists Messrs Wyndham Lewis and Edward Wadsworth, the Italian Futurist Mr Giacomo Balla, and the surrealist, Mr Salvador Dalí, designed and painted their own ties. Mr Dalí took to wearing two at a time. In the 1980s, the Italian design group Memphis also released a range of surrealist ties.

If we are to accept Mr Perry’s suggestion that the tie is deeply symbolic, can we not also acknowledge that ties can sometimes be, for want of a better word, sexy? Check out Mr Bryan Ferry’s tie with its 1950s atomic motif in the video for his 1976 song “Let’s Stick Together”– he bought it at Mr Malcolm McLaren’s and Ms Vivienne Westwood’s Let It Rock boutique. Here, the tie’s phallic symbolism is at its most delightfully sexual, especially, when in throes of cavorting onstage with Ms Jerry Hall, Mr Ferry’s bright red tie becomes untucked over his ivory white suit, seemingly pointing downward towards his crotch.

Then there’s the Fifty Shades Of Grey phenomenon. “When [the film] came out, we were asked to start making our bespoke ties longer by both female and male clients,” says Mr Gomilsek-Cole. “On a date, the tie looks special, like a ribbon to a present that will be unwrapped later.”

Perhaps the best tie-wearers in the world at the moment are the masters of Italian sprezzatura such as Mssrs Alessandro Squarzi, Lino Ieluzzi and their Japanese counterparts such as Mr Yasuto Kamoshita. Indeed, ties and the myriad ways in which they can be worn, seem almost precision tooled for the art of demonstrating sprezzatura. Mr Ieluzzi has a very particular way of tying his predominantly cashmere ties. They tend to have a very big knot, with a very large dimple, which the Italians call “la sorchetta”. Many Italian street-style stars will also wear the back blade a bit longer than the front, and even have it running parallel: anything to gently subvert the tie’s perceived formality. This feels like the modern, 2017 way of wearing a tie.

But perhaps even more surprising than the tie’s continued presence in the everyday wardrobes of sartorially astute men is its sudden reappearance on the runway. Particularly because, for AW17, it’s part of a reappropriation of the corporate look. Balenciaga’s Fall 2017 collection featured a kind of ironic, high-fashion take on the basic uniform of the office worker, complete with long ties worn over untucked shirts. And people are into it: key pieces from the collection (including the logo-bedecked ties) are sold out (or nearly so) on MR PORTER. Perhaps for the first time ever, looking like a corporate drone is cool.

If even this association is no longer a problem, then we’re arguably entering a time in which the tie, in all its myriad forms, is more expressive than ever before. As Mr Gomilsek-Cole puts it,  “It shows personality. Not wearing one means you either have no personality, or you do, but you’re not willing to share it.”

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