Part of the reason I focus so much on the necktie, why the name of this project includes the word necktie, is because the necktie is, in the modern era and more-so and especially in 2022, a symbol of the man. The necktie is located in the deepest territory of exclusive male garments. You see women wear pants, you see women wear a coat which resembles our sport coats, you see women wear a large OCBD, untucked (a boyfriend shirt). You almost never, or you ought never, see a woman wearing a necktie.
A necktie not only ought to be reserved exclusively for men, but it is essentially, in practice and reality, reserved exclusively for men in our culture. It is the last bastion of menswear that women have not seized en masse. Why have they not approached the necktie? Most likely because it is "uncomfortable". I am not saying that to cut on women or imply women don't want to wear something uncomfortable. Hardly. Women today, in general, endure much more uncomfort-ability in their beautification than men. The high heel alone is more uncomfortable than anything most men wear. Most men are total slobs who find even a necktie "so uncomfortable" because they feel like "they can't breathe". The man who wears sweatpants and sweatshirts and loungewear all day, every day of his life, who finds anything else "uncomfortable" is pathetic. His female counterpart does, in general, go through greater bouts of discomfort in their beautification. The average man, most certainly needs a kick in the rear. This article however isn't about many men's obsession with comfort or the disparity between beautification standards for men, and women in the (post) modern 2022 west, I just thought it appropriate to clarify that one point.
Returning to the necktie - being in the innermost chamber, deepest in the territory of male attire, the necktie becomes the essential, in a sense, representation of man. Obviously, many make the phallic comparison which of course is easy to do but ultimately we are setting that aside, going past that. It is more holistic than one pointed (crude) observation as written about in a prior piece of mine "Tie Your Tie Tight" . Also, you may notice, it is the same rep tie in both this photo and the photo from the earlier piece.
What does this all mean? This means, to my mind, the necktie reveals itself as the most acute and most direct manifestation of man in his attire. It is this item which says it all. It is this exception, this piece which is the exceptional, which the real depth and most confident assertion and reaffirmation of the actual is reiterated. The total forbidding of woman to wear the necktie is of the utmost importance if we want to protect even one last bastion of male attire, serenity, organization and statement. The necktie is our deepest most protected territory affirming man in the modern West aesthetic - it is in religious terms, to the modern man of the west, the sartorial holy of holies. To wear a necktie in 2022 with gravitas and natural being, is aesthetically speaking, the most confident, certain, deliberate statement and emergence of man and masculinity in the world of the aesthetic and sartorial.
In this photo, you see a green and blue rep tie which is vintage J. Crew and a delightfully rare orange university stripe OCBD from J. Press.