Neckties!

[August_West]

I wish I could wear ties more often. I like 'em.

My favorites are my “Four-in-Hand” from Lee Allison. There’s a hidden message in the tipping that always makes me smile.

[Kobal2]

@CoastalMaineiac

Who the fuck ever came up with the idea that we should wear some long, asphyxiation device around the neck

The French, who else ?
(I’m barely even kidding, BTW - the fashion started with Balkanic additions to Napoleon’s army, IIRC)

In other news, I personally drew the line there : no monthly check is worth that one bit of sartorial retardation. I’ll rape gila monsters for food. Hell, I’ll even write your stupid website press releases if you pay me to, and that’s a lot more degrading.
But if you mandate the tie I’m out don’t matter how bad I’m starving. A man needs to hold some principles.

[lisiate]

@Stana_Claus

Fortunately for me, I no longer have to wear a tie at work and haven’t for a number of years. But about the shirt thing - unless I paid big money (which I didn’t have) to buy custom tailored shirts I always had to choose between shirts that fit through the shoulders and sleeves but were too small in the neck, or shirts that fit my neck but looked like a family of chimpanzees moved out elsewhere. I’m about 19.5" in the neck, 52" through the chest, with 34" sleeves. Try finding THAT in something ready-to-wear!

Preach it monkey brother. I too have a thick neck. It’s tailor made shirts or open necked for me.

[The_Second_Stone]

@OtakuLoki

Vlad Tepes legislated a modified sash for the remaining nobles in his principality after he returned from his first exile. There were to be a quick way of hanging nobles, and make it clear that each noble in his realm was his servant and owed their lives to the throne. There aren’t any documented cases of Vlad actually using the sash for its intended purpose, but because the sash was not mentioned in any sumptary laws (which would regulate which social classes could wear what sort of decorative clothing) such sashes were quickly imitated by the upper mercantile classes within Wallachia.

Trade down the Danube brought these sashes into wider circulation where, among other things, they provided the inspiration for the Greek cravats brought back to England in the eighteenth century by seafarers. From there, they were picked up by the ton, and again were used by anyone trying to ape upper class fashions. This linkage to upper class positions was emphasized after the growing industrial revolution showed just how deadly loose clothing around the early machinery used in manufacturies. The first documented case of a tie-related fatality was in the Manchester Herald’s evening edition of Feb 18, 1831. A J. Carter had his cravat pulled into the shaft of the lathe he was working on, with “gruesomme” results.

It only took a few such incidents to make the cravat, and the later tie, both anathema for anyone working in the skilled trades, or on manufacturing lines. Which simply reinforced the utility of the tie as a social indica. Sumptuary laws may be a thing of the past, but class indica are eternal.

If pressed, the author may admit this whole post is simply barely plausible B.S. None of which changes the fact that ties are awful.

This is confirmed by Snopes.