# Was it ever fashionable to wear a short tie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** fashion-clothing\ **Created:** [November 7, 2026, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660 "2026-11-07T15:03:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/1 "2026-11-07T15:03:44Z")
Sometimes, when looking at old photos, I’ll see men wearing suits with ties that only go about half way down their shirt. In modern times, that’s a fashion faux pas; your tie should come down to your belt buckle. Wearing it short makes you look uncool. But was it ever fashionable to wear a short tie? It doesn’t seem to be a universal thing, just something i notice occasionally in old pictures. Are these the fashion failures of yesteryear, or was it just a different standard back then? ETA: here’s an example. Note the guy on the far left. That’s so short as to be a deliberate choice, in my opinion (whereas the other two men with shortish ties look to be aiming for the typical belt length, even if they were off in their measuring the length of the tying). But was it considered a good look? [![](https://i.ibb.co/2RX6ycx/IMG-2341.jpg) ](https://i.ibb.co/2RX6ycx/IMG-2341.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/2 "2026-11-07T15:11:51Z")
Tie to belt buckle was definitely not the fashion when I was growing up, and to my eye looks stupid. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/3 "2026-11-07T15:15:59Z")
I bet you have seen bow ties and cravats that do not hang down to the belt. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/4 "2026-11-07T15:16:21Z")
Shorter ties were the norm in the interwar perìod, both because of higher waistlines on trousers and more frequent wearing of waistcoats. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/5 "2026-11-07T15:19:15Z")
> [@susan](#): > > Tie to belt buckle was definitely not the fashion when I was growing up, and to my eye looks stupid. Ignorance fought! Where were you supposed to wear the tie? > [@DPRK](#): > > bet you have seen bow ties and cravats that do not hang down to the belt. Yes I have, and I apologize for my sloppy use of language. I was referring to the tie that hangs down. Those long ones. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/6 "2026-11-07T15:33:44Z")
In case anyone else is wondering, according to the Google search results I found, the photo in the OP is from 1923 and shows Walt Disney, Roy Disney, Ub Iwerks and other cartoonists from the Disney team, posing for a photo with the actress Margie Gay. My guess is that the ties were that short because they were typically worn under a sweater vest (as seen on Walt Disney and several others) or a waistcoat. So it didn’t really matter that the tie didn’t reach the belt, as is customary today. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/7 "2026-11-07T15:52:09Z")
In that era it was also fairly common for men wearing a tie to tuck the end inside their shirt between two of the upper-middle buttons. It was even the officially correct uniform wear for the US Army for awhile. e.g. **[US army uniform men’s tie tucked into dress shirt - Google Image Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=US+army+uniform+men%27s+tie+tucked+into+dress+shirt&hl=en&udm=2&uact=5&oq=US+army+uniform+men%27s+tie+tucked+into+dress+shirt&sclient=gws-wiz-img)**. A tie mostly intended to be worn tucked in would likely be designed to be shorter to begin with. Funny, but I tried to get Google image search to show me period pix of _civilians_ w ties tucked in that way. It flooded the results with current pix of current men’s fashionistas doing that. Try as I might I couldn’t figure out how to get it to just give me/us old pix. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/8 "2026-11-07T15:57:52Z")
What about the Bolo Tie? ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/9 "2026-11-07T16:24:58Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > more frequent wearing of waistcoats. Or relatively casual wear, as in the photo, with sweaters and those trousers, which I think are called plus-fours. But yes, you can see short neckties a lot in movies from the 30s and 40s, usually when the waistcoats are unbuttoned. Suit trousers were often worn (even by young men) right up at the navel. There’s a scene in the movie Murder My Sweet, where Claire Trevor suddenly shows up in Dick Powell’s room while he is still half-dressed, and during the conversation he finishes the job. He very intentionally ties his tie quite short, but it still reaches the top of his trousers. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/10 "2026-11-07T16:43:16Z")
Of course all this goes back to how long the strip of cloth is to begin with. Given the diameter of the wearer’s neck and choice of knot, the shortest the visible tail can be is with the two tails of equal length. And the longest the visible tail can be is with the hidden tail as short as it can be without disappearing up into the knot causing the knot to fall apart. So the as-tied finished length is rather closely coupled to both your personal torso length & neck size, and separately to the then-current fashion for men’s pants heights. Given a bunch of this style was happening around the Depression, I could imagine a bunch of men with short ties and slowly lowering pants waistlines resulting in wearing older ties with newer pants because they couldn’t afford to update both. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/11 "2026-11-07T17:01:42Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > the shortest the visible tail can be is with the two tails of equal length No, you can have the wider end even shorter than the other one, where the longer length of the thin end is all tucked away. I’ve done that myself (for comic effect in a LARP) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/12 "2026-11-07T17:09:50Z")
D’oh! And I even talked about tucking the tie into the shirt in my previous post. Thank you! 🤦‍♂️ 🤦‍♂️ ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/13 "2026-11-07T17:16:07Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > What about the Bolo Tie? Completely different species, and a bolo tie which hangs down to the beltline would be…interesting. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/14 "2026-11-07T21:54:47Z")
didn’t Humphrey Bogart wear his tie short in Maltese Falcon? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/15 "2026-11-07T22:20:32Z")
Yes. I was thinking of just that movie and of Bogie. Jimmy Stewart’s ties often look too short to me. Fred McMurray’s too. Maybe because they are tall? Like @LSLGuy says. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/16 "2026-11-07T22:36:07Z")
A fashionista once told me that a necktie is supposed to cover the shirt buttons. In the days when men always wore vests, that required less. In World War II army uniforms, you were supposed to tuck the tie in between the last button not covered by the jacket, and the first button covered by the jacket. When you wore the jacket, the shirt buttons would all be covered. When not wearing the jacket, the tie would have a uniform appearance not dependent on your knot-tying skills. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/17 "2026-11-07T23:16:37Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > A fashionista once told me that a necktie is supposed to cover the shirt buttons. In the days when men always wore vests, that required less. This is the first time I’ve heard a reason for tie length, and the first time I’ve heard a rational reason for the existence of neckties in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/18 "2026-11-07T23:17:05Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > What about the Bolo Tie? There was some place near the border, where males had to wear a tie, so Dad & I wore bolo ties- which were acceptable. I can not see that working anywhere but in “cowboy country” however. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2026, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/19 "2026-11-07T23:35:46Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > which I think are called plus-fours. Yes. It means four inches below the knee. ---
**Author:** ![billy-jack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@billy-jack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billy-jack)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660/20 "2026-11-08T00:00:39Z")
Wearing a tie tucked in to uniform shirts was required in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M. [![](https://www.aggienetwork.com/content/f1/features/corpsuniforms/media/cords.jpg) ](https://www.aggienetwork.com/content/f1/features/corpsuniforms/media/cords.jpg) If I remember correctly, we tucked them in lower back in the day. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-ever-fashionable-to-wear-a-short-tie/1034660.md?page=2)