The London Lounge

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2008 5:30 pm**

The attached commentary gave me pause over my morning coffee. From today's Wall Street Journal, with the full link for those who wish to read all the sordid details.

It appears those of us stateside have our work cut out for us as we attempt to swing the pendulum of good taste back to its rightful place.

Best,

Trout

Many American men stopped wearing neckties years ago. Now, even tie guys are giving up on them.

After 60 years, the Men's Dress Furnishings Association, the trade group that represents American tie makers, is expected to shut down Thursday.

Association members now number just 25, down from 120 during the 1980s power-tie era. U.S. tie companies have been consolidating. Others have closed because of overseas competition as the U.S. market share for American-made ties has fallen to about 40%, from 75% in 1995.

Members have lost interest. But the biggest reason for the group's demise: Men aren't wearing ties.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, the number of men who wore ties every day to work last year dropped to a record low of 6%, down from 10% in 2002. U.S. sales have plummeted to $677.7 million in the 12 months ending March 31, from their peak of $1.3 billion in 1995, according to market researcher NPD Group. Although sales are expected to get a bump around Father's Day, June 15, the future of neckties is very much in doubt.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1212536 ... us_pageone

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2008 7:23 pm**

Often hearalded, grossly exagerated.

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2008 7:25 pm**

troutonthefly wrote:According to a recent Gallup Poll, the number of men who wore ties every day to work last year dropped to a record low of 6%, down from 10% in 2002.

I, for one, shall not waiver.

There is strength even in small numbers.

-a proud member of the 6%

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:00 am**

Take note that the poll results only refer to men who do not wear ties "every day;" they may still wear them a couple of days a week.

I notice too in the poll linked to that article that someone has written: "Not wearing a tie is a further example of becoming lazy and sloppy in all that we do. I have never met a Chinese or Indian businessman without a tie. Our sense of entitlement will eventually destroy us all."

I must say, I have to agree. Without wanting to start on one of my clash-of-cultures rants, I feel that this sort of laziness and apathy in the Western world is destroying what made our civilization great. To speak of Western society as a whole, this sort of attitude is making us more complacent, too easy going, more selfish and ultimately less productive. One has only to look to our compatriots in Asia and see their economic development, etc. and consider the pride in themselves and in their cultures and nations that we seem to have lost part of.

The last part of the article, referring to wearing ties at baseball games, also reminds me of an article I came across some months ago, by Joseph Epstein on memory. I will try to dig it out and find the quote that comes to mind when I get home.

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:40 am**

I will wear a tie and coat to go out to buy the newspaper in the weekend.

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:22 am**

Sator wrote:I will wear a tie and coat to go out to buy the newspaper in the weekend.

My hat goes off to you (will you also be wearing a hat?).

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:30 am**

I found the piece I was referring to above. It comes from a wonderful article entitled 'Why Beards?' by Meir Soloveichik that discusses the history of beards in Judaism and Western civilization. It appeared in the February 2008 edition of Commentary magazine.

Even for those who forgo trips to the dermatologist and plastic surgeon, our infatuation with youth remains embedded in daily habit. Yale University's Stephen Carter, the author of Reflections of an AffirmativeAction Baby (1991), once complained that American blacks had fought for decades for the right to be called "Mr." and "Mrs.," only to discover that such basic marks of respect had become obsolete across the board.

Writing in a similar vein of our culture of "perpetual adolescence," Joseph Epstein observes on the basis of old newsreel films that even baseball games used to be attended by adults dressed "in a suit and a fedora or other serious adult hat." Now, "informality has been institutionalized" to the point where captains of industry dress like children. If, Epstein writes, it was once assumed that life had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that "the middle--adulthood--was the lengthiest and most earnest part, where everything serious happened and much was at stake," today "the ideal almost everywhere is to seem young for as long as possible."

Epstein's words have helped me understand an interesting incongruity that I face again and again. According to the Talmud, a Jewish male becomes an adult at the age of thirteen, a female at twelve. And there was indeed a time, not so long ago, when the notion of a thirteen-year-old as an adult seemed perfectly sensible--when hungry mouths depended on a newly minted teenager's finding a job, learning a trade, preparing to leave the care of his parents, and, soon enough, starting a family of his own. This was hardly peculiar to Jews. "How quickly the Depression generation was required to mature!" Epstein writes. "How many stories one used to hear about older brothers going to work at eighteen or earlier, so that a younger brother might be allowed to go to college, or simply to help keep the family afloat!"

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:38 am**

pvpatty wrote: will you also be wearing a hat?).

I never step out of the house without one.

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:52 am**

pvpatty wrote:. . . . I feel that this sort of laziness and apathy in the Western world is destroying what made our civilization great. To speak of Western society as a whole, this sort of attitude is making us more complacent, too easy going, more selfish and ultimately less productive. . . .

My own thoughts echo these, which embody the perpetual adolescence (itself perpetuating much infantile) so broadly evident today. I've long believed that we may be at the edge of a great societal collapse, comparable to those collapses we've experienced in the West at least twice before (the Mycenean, ca. 1200 B.C.; the Roman or Classical, fifth century A.D.); the chief difference this time is that a collapse of the West could take the rest of the world down with it.

Well, enough of such gloom. Off to work -- with coat and tie.

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:53 pm**

Off to work, on the 08.19 train to Waterloo - with: d/b dark blue chalkstripe suit, shirt and stiff collar, tie, topcoat, hat, scarf, dark blue half hose, black punchcap oxfords, galoshes, scarf, buttonhole, pocket square, tightly furled brolly; neatly folded daily Telegraph and a pair of gloves. Halfway there I realized that I had forgotten my overnight work papers. However, a stiff upper lip must prevail in all things. The overseas clients were more than happy to discuss the importance of floating canvasses and debate the relative merits of the hard and soft approaches to tailoring until the meeting papers arrived by courier at 12.50pm; which left a good ten minutes to discuss them before luncheon on the last day of smoking in the club; where, owing to the fact that we continued to discuss the main topic of the morning, we certainly did not infringe any rule about talking shop. By the time that the cognacs and cigars were over, there really wasn't any point in returning to the office and we went our separate ways - I for the 17.42 from Waterloo and the others off to Heathrow. The only slight blot on the memory of the day was that I left my Brigg brolly on the blasted train home....
NJS.

Posted: **Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:37 am**

A hard day's work, NJS?

Posted: **Fri Jun 06, 2008 2:10 pm**

Pure fantasy; although I can recall a few days like that. However, I am fiddling while Rome burns (and from far away not to have to watch the flames), as I agree with RWS's observations not far above here: economically and socially the west (which I take to mean North America and western Europe) are in pretty obvious difficulties: the murder rate in England and Wales is increasing at a frightening speed. I am not so sure that the same decline is evident in the rest of the planted Commonwealth countries: Australia seems determined to keep its ntional identity intact. It would be fatuous to suggest that the decline is because chaps are abandoning neck ties. However, they plainly are doing so - just look around you - and when people stop caring for form, a heedless disregard for substance (courtesy, comity of values and regard for others) will not be far behind.
NJS

Posted: **Fri Jun 06, 2008 4:25 pm**

storeynicholas wrote:. . . . when people stop caring for form, a heedless disregard for substance (courtesy, comity of values and regard for others) will not be far behind. . . .

A clearer, more concise case for careful dress and the real meaning of the Lounge could not be made. (Or, as now is said hereabouts, "Right on, NJ!")

Posted: **Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:06 pm**

I for one, am glad that in the 21st century either option is acceptable. Surely this is a sign of progress within of a civilisation?

Posted: **Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:12 pm**

Thank you RWS!! I don't think that this is side-tracking the subject - what amazes me is the number of people that I know - intelligent, conscientious people - in the UK who bury their heads in the sand - indeed,when I suggested that one of them was living in a cocoon, I misspelled 'cocoon' and his total response was to correct my spelling - and this was on a day on which two toddlers and a baby in the same family were stabbed (two fatally) and another 15 year old girl was stabbed to death in a lift. Recently, the British Council newspaper in Rio mentioned a case in the international news - the adopted Brazilian daughter of an Anglican priest (who did a turn of duty in Rio and then returned to the UK) was recently chased by bullies until she tried to escape through a window and fell to her death. We all like discussing the arts and crafts which produce fine goods but we need to remember these things are the - last word - and not the first - of any civilization.
NJS

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