TIES, CULTURE AND BRAND PR
When I graduated from college in 1995, wearing a tie to work every day topped my list of things I wasn’t looking forward to. Even though it was the norm at the time, I always felt constrained in a tie. During my first agency job, I was constantly scolded by my supervisor for not wearing a tie every day and to every single client meeting.
Then, slowly during the dot-com era, no ties became the norm. For many, and certainly for me, the defining moment was the AOL-Time Warner merger, when the CEO of Time Warner didn’t wear a tie during the press conference.
Watching the presidential “non debates” the other day, I instantly noticed that neither candidates, nor the host, wore a tie. I was struck by how the world has changed forever in this manner. The Wall Street Journal in an article dissected the phenomenon and doled at advice on how to pull off the no necktie look to a tee.
I may even venture to say that today I encounter more jeans in serious meetings among big and small company CEOs than I do neckties. While our office dress code is still business casual (no jeans except on Fridays), and while I have a closet full of neckties, if I wear a tie a few times a year, it’s a lot.
In many ways, this can be viewed as the continuous break down of not only formality in communications, but also society in general.
Ronn Torossian
5WPR
August 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am
It sounds like neckties are to our generation what hats were to our fathers and grandfathers. My dad once mentioned that it was a big deal when Kennedy didn’t wear a hat at his inauguration, or at least that it was a big enough deal for everyone to talk about it.
I think ties are ridiculous, and I hate wearing them (I’ve only had to do so once since I made Aliyah four years ago … at a wedding in Pennsylvania). But I think dressing nicely is an important way to show respect for other people, not to mention hadar. Living in Israel, I can’t count the number of times I’ve been the only guy in a room wearing a shirt with a collar, or pants that reach down all the way to my ankles….