What is it about a strip of silk that is so iconic?

[Luca]

I am always struck by how important and totemic clothing is to people who profess not to care about clothes.

Witness the following excerpt from a Reuters story:
[Newly-appointed Greek Finance Minister] Varoufakis met about 100 banks and financial institutions in London. An organiser said one of the meetings had to be moved from a upmarket London members' club, because Varoufakis wouldn't wear a tie.

[Frederic Leighton]

Wonderful! I've been kicked out of several pubs, when I was still frequenting them, for refusing to take off my tie. Integrity always first. Even in scruffiness, if that's the case

[aston]

When my children were young they always insisted I took my tie off the moment I walked in through the front door in the evening; tie on meant I was in work mode, tie off meant I was in home mode.......

[Luca]

[...] refusing to take off my tie. Integrity always first. Even

Wow Leighton!
That's dedication! I have foregone material and, ehm, 'personal entertainment' benefits on the basis of religious belief but never upon sartorial principles...

Then again, I suspect in your case the two might conflate...

[Frederic Leighton]

When my children were young they always insisted I took my tie off the moment I walked in through the front door in the evening; tie on meant I was in work mode, tie off meant I was in home mode.......

Aston, did you ever try to make them wear a tie in the evening, so they could feel more "at home" in your company? ties add colour, texture and fun, after all! I wonder why they are allowed in offices; too much fun, too much distraction...

[...] refusing to take off my tie. Integrity always first.

I have foregone material and, ehm, 'personal entertainment' benefits on the basis of religious belief but never upon sartorial principles... Then again, I suspect in your case the two might conflate...

Luca, thank you for making me smile and also for pushing me to better investigate the origin of the Latin term religio. It turns out that this is still in dispute, with three main interpretations. But this is what I find really interesting:

To return to the word “religion,” it is a curious fact that, although all the ancestors of today’s Europeans had (like the ancestors of all the world’s inhabitants) what we would call religions, no ancient Indo-European language had a specific word for religion, Latin having been the first — which is why the great majority of modern European languages have some version of religio as their term for it. Probably this was because, precisely since religion was everywhere in the ancient world and no activity was divorced from it, it never struck anyone as a distinct aspect of life calling for a name of its own. (source)