The tie is dead. Long live the tie.

For decades, fashion writers and designers have been proclaiming the “death” of the tie. And yet it survived. Until now. I believe we are finally witnessing the end of the necktie in general society.

And in case you think this is hyperbole, I checked with an expert. Bruce Boyer literally wrote the book (ok, books) on men’s style. He also once joked that he went to a funeral and only two guys were wearing a tie: Bruce and the dead guy. I asked him for his thoughts on the future of the tie. After all, he’s probably seen all this before, through the casual movements of the 60s and 90s and the return of formality in the 80s. Bruce admitted, though, that this time around, it’s different. In fact, he proclaims that “the suit (and its accompaniments) as we recognise it will not be around thirty years from now.” However, Bruce doesn’t consider himself an oracle, adding, “like the statesman Otto von Bismarck, I feel much more comfortable prophesying about the past rather than the future.”

In a way, the death of the tie is nothing new. Since WWII, we have lost a lot of menswear “staples” including (to different degrees) the waistcoat, the dress hat, galoshes, long overcoats and suspenders. But the tie survived, despite having no practical use (especially compared to the articles on that list). And it survived not because of menswear devotees like me but because of businessmen, politicians and TV presenters. It was when the tie started disappearing from that crowd that I heard the death knell.

Companies small and large, even as monumental as PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., have relaxed their dress codes, meaning ties are no longer mandatory. Politicians are flirting with the tie-less look in more and more situations, not just at weekend photo ops. So it seems that newscasters and sports presenters are the only men on TV consistently wearing ties (usually shiny things tied into huge Double Windsors). But even that is changing, as I noticed recently during a Champion’s League broadcast on BT Sports.

Here we see (left to right) Gary Lineker, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes and Steven Gerrard and not a single tie. However, I would point out that only one of the four is doing it well: Gerrard. The other three make the mistake so many politicians do: wear a dark business suit with a light-coloured solid shirt. They end up looking like they forgot to wear ties. Gerrard is doing it right because he’s introduced variety into the rest of his outfit – a brown sport jacket, a knit vest, and a light blue shirt with an cutaway collar. Even though the triangular area caused by the jacket and vest could be filled with a tie, the collar shape and more casual look of the rest of the outfit make it look intentional, not forgotten.

As I wrote a couple of years ago, I take great joy in wearing a tie, so I think it’s a shame they are disappearing from men’s necks. Ties are not symbols of work and drudgery to me but of beauty and male elegance. Of course they’re not practical, but they do serve a purpose: to add colour, texture and a focal point to your outfit.

And I now realise it’s the very fact that only politicians, TV presenters and business men have been wearing ties that ultimately doomed them. This group of men rarely, if ever, wore ties with any kind of dash or joy. The ties were purely ornamental and there because they had to be there. This is a true shame because we are living in the best of times for ties, in a way, due to all the quality makers out there producing stunning ties.

I hope for their sake, and for the sake of beauty in general, that a small group of us continue to keep the tie alive.

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