PrawfsBlawg posts on Bow Ties, kindly lumping me among the “young men.” I'm now old enough to appreciate that.
The question which sparks the discussion is from an “anonymous female reader,”
I dare you to do a post on bow ties. I don't know much about male sartorial inclinations. But what's up with the young men and bow ties? Geoffrey Rapp, Michael Froomkin come to mind. I'm sure there's more. Is it for gravitas?
You should do a post about tie choice for all you fellows out there (for the ladies, Miranda Fleischer did one on hair down vs. ponytails and there have been many posts about wardrobe choices for classrooms on Prawfs). See if there's a two-tailed distribution for bow ties: the very young and the very old, or the shooting-for-gravitas and the shooting-for-gravestones.
In fact, the reasons for wearing bow ties are legion, and most have nothing to do with a quest for gravitas, quite the contrary:
- Harder to get soup on it;
- Socially sanctioned minor rebellion which exposes constriction of carotid artery custom as really silly;
- Fits more easily in a pocket;
- Stand out in a crowd — when meeting people for the first time can tell them, “look for the guy in the bow tie”;
- If it's good enough for Justice Stevens, it's good enough for me.
(Suspenders, now, that's another story…)
Did I mention that back in the early days of the internet, I was, I believe, the first person to post online directions on how to tie a bow tie?
Previous bow-tie posting: What a strange question.
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