Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	2/1/2005

Should your necktie have a dimple or not?

Having grown up in the Sean Connery-James Bond era of narrow ties with no dimples, I have been a no dimple man all my life. This was an important issue in my daily dress routine as I was working in a manufacturing environment for the last 20 years where the Japanese styled company uniform -- sans tie -- was the norm.

Recently however, it was brought to my attention that a dimple in a man's tie is not necessarily a sign of poor knot making ability as I had casually assumed, but actually the going sartorial standard. How could I have missed such a trend? I needed more data. Over the last few weeks I have conducted some basic research on this matter. Here are my key findings:

Last week while waiting to meet the president of a lumber company in Roanoke Rapids, I was able to check photos in the December and January issues of CEO Magazine. It was a good standard to work off I thought. I found undimpled executives to be in the slight majority by a 14-12 margin. There did not seem to differential between American and European execs.

Today, still indecisive, but on the advice of my always dimpled physician friend, I was wearing a dimple during a visit to Dan O'Shea at Fairway Outdoor. How much more confident I felt with my dimple there as I talked to Dan wearing his perfectly centered one -- not too big, not too small. Dan was in fact my inspiration for getting a new suit and tie. In my pre-dimple awareness days, I had bumped into him at the Trebic Pig and Politics BBQ during the campaign season. Dan stood out as one of the sharpest dressed guys in a room full of Guilford noterati --- Not the same style but on the same plane as Skip Alston. Admiring his threads, I decided right there I needed to find a good tailor after the election was over.

Dan wearing a dimple confirms things for me. If a tie is some sort of phallic symbol, I now feel the dimple is a must -- like a foreskin; Something if you have you can always chose not to but if you don't well it's certainly difficult to create in short order.

As a recent convert to the dimple let me just recommend, "Better that you die than to get caught without your dimple in a room full of men who have their's."
10:03:38 PM

comment []