So People Say I Can’t Wear a Bowtie
I was speaking to old Josh about my intention to dress better, and he says that my consideration of a bowtie and/or suspenders is laughable, that I will be looking like Peewee Herman.
But this seemed to knee-jerk for me, so I decided to check with GQ to see what it said. I quote:
Once the mark of the urbane, independent, devil-may-care or rakish personality and worn by such heroes as Bogart and Sinatra, the bow tie somehow began to connote the opposite type. By the ’70s, it was widely perceived as the mark of a nerd or geek. Think of Jerry Lewis in nutty character or Mayberry’s spooked deputy sheriff, Barney Fife. In recent years, this stereotype has been reinforced by Pee-wee Herman and by presidential candidate Paul Simon—nerds, albeit men of courage under their less-than-formidable exteriors.
If you have swagger, a bow tie can be a badge of
courage. The four-in-hand-only Hitler no doubt trembled at the bow-tie alliance of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
There are also many practical advantages to the bow tie. It won’t droop into your soup or get caught up in the cogs of machinery, so it’s a good choice for men of action. The bow is not for the timid of heart or the broad of face. The crucial fact is that it must not be too large—the mark of a clown—and it must be hand-tied carelessly. The anal-retentive clip-on look is the sign of a compulsive hand washer or a potential Unabomber. It looks like it might squirt water or suddenly go for a spin. But a beautifully asymmetrical, slightly tousled bow is a perfect look for a romantic nonconformist man of style. It’s best as an alternative, not a uniform, but it definitely has its place in our repertoire.
I suppose I will have to get one and try it on to see.
If you follow that GQ link, and read the first few paragraphs, you will see that the bowtie is not really acceptable in our society.
As a matter of fact, it says if you wear one you will never be taken seriously again!
Sounds like someone is using selective quoting to me.
And if you read the article CLOSELY you will see that the author was quoting someone who said “you will never be taken seriously again.” The author then goes on to (qualitatively) debunk that view and to champion the cause of the bowtie. It wasn’t selective quoting at all. I simply saw no need to quote a quoted detractor, since this is the common view anyway. Instead, I sought to show that the common view was not entirely universal among the sartorially minded.
In any case, as a freethinking bucolic academic, I can get away with a measure of eccentricity in my clothing.
Spacelord,
As you know I wear a bowtie every Sunday for all the reasons listed in your last paragraph. I don’t really care what other people think about it. Two of the best professors that I had in college wore bowties and neither one was a nerd. Actually I think the regular tie that most people have hanging down their belly, in this dark age of ours, looks silly. I vote you give it a try. Heck, I will be glad to send you one.
Joseph