I don’t have to have a mirror to tie the tie, but I do have to have one to make sure the results look good. But you have to do that with everything, especially when you are trying to look dressed up. It’s in a place where I can’t look down and see if for myself, unlike tying my shoes.
I still continue to find that most ties are too short with even the four-in-hand knot, so I’ve never tried any of the others. I have no idea if I still remember how to do it, and definitely prefer it when I can get a woman to do it for me. It just feels so loving. (Every guy I know who will do it for me will do it on his own neck. I never have figured out how they can get the length right that way.)
I tie it myself, but I wear ties so rarely that I usually end up fumbling around for a while, doing it wrong a few times, and ultimately I have to get directions from google.
I am not sure why guys re-tie their tie every day. My father never did, nor do I.
One of the reasons for this is that we both have very short torsos. So the ties have to be tied so they are exactly the right length (short enough not to be way too long for our torso, and just long enough to cover the mini-tie behind it).
It is way too difficult to get this perfect tie every day, so I just keep them tied. No one can apparently tell the difference.
After about 20 years of tie-wearing at work, I began to tie them only once (Windsor knot) and then removed them by loosening them and lifting them, still looped, over the head, then to the tie rack/doorknob. Did that for the next 20 years until I retired. Haven’t worn one since then except for one funeral. Still have them all, many with transportation job-related thematic figures/designs.
Speaking of short ties, I’m always struck when watching a film like Casablanca just how short men’s ties were back then. Seems they barely reached a man’s stomach.
Seriously though, the whole point to wearing a real bow tie is that it looks cooler untied at the end of the evening. If I somehow forgot how to tie one before going to a formal event, I’d wear a fake one and bring a real one to swap in, untied, later.
When I was a teenager, my oldest brother showed me how to tie a tie. I grasped it easily, and have done it myself ever since. No mirror, no assistance.
I’ve never had a job where I’ve had to wear a tie, so I don’t wear ties very often, but I do like to dress up a bit, so I wear them occasionally.
The knot itself is easy, I can do that without a mirror (except a full-windsor. I need someone to teach me), but I need a mirror to get the length right. The knot is perfect every time.
Step A: google and save PDF of tie-tying instructions
Step B: tie tie once for all time
Step C: after wearing tie, take tie off by loosening the noose part and fling into back of closet to be found in the year 2023 or something when I next have reason to wear a freaking tie
I’m kind of like a mortician in that I can’t tie a tie when it’s around my own neck.
My dad taught me to tie a tie when I was a teenager. He always sat down, crossed his left leg over his right, and tied his tie around his left knee while looking at it. I imagine that my grandfather taught him this technique.
I do the same thing now. I’ll probably teach my two sons the same technique. I will NOT send them out into the world not knowing basic sartorial skills.
Well, I don’t know if I should hang my head in shame, but I’m a 43 year old male who has only worn a tie on two occasions in his entire life (once as a soldier, the other time for an application photo shoot). I do not exactly live somewhere where men don’t wear ties at all (Germany), but neither my job (programmer) nor any kind of social situation require me to ever wear a tie, and since I think they are the most useless article of clothing for a man, I don’t wear them, and thus can’t tie them myself.
But I think that’s a case of cultural divide, because for my father’s generation, wearing a tie was/is just as ubiquitous as it seems to be for the most of you Americans (judging by the answers to this thread).
