5 Feb 2015

Sartorial rebellion: the Greek cutting out ties

I’m going to take the risk of stating as a fact that most men don’t wear ties. I doubt there are any figures available but normal dresswear for men is increasingly open necked.

And yet, the strikingly good looking Yanis Voaroufakis, newly appointed finance minister of Greece, has caused a stir by entering the portals of financial ministries across Europe tie-less.

Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis and German Finance Minister Schaeuble address news conference at the finance ministry in Berlin

Yet I sense that the very sight of a man without a tie in a setting in which everybody else is wearing a tie leaves much of the populous and beyond thinking “hey, there’s one of us! In there negotiating”.

Evan Davis in considering what to do on his first night on Newsnight considered whether to wear a tie or not – he generally doesn’t in real life – and decided he should.

I wear a tie because it’s a sort of statement, it’s a splash of colour upon an otherwise slightly drab looking being and its one relatively inexpensive thing a man can change everyday and still remain suited.

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I can’t work out whether a tie is some kind of badge of authority – and yet most people in authority who wear a tie wear a distinctly boring one, a dull coloured strip of rag.

I can’t think of a more depressing start to the day than to go to the wardrobe and pull out a dull maroon tie, with a few dots or stripes on it. Or worse, none at all.

Watch: Yianis Voaroufakis 2012 special report for Channel 4 News

When the G8 leaders appeared in Northern Ireland without a tie and sporting (with the exception of Angela Merkel) open neck shirts, it looked OK because it seemed they agreed in advance not to leave more than one button open.

So it was still left to the imagination whether any of them sported a hairy chest.

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So wither the tie now? Wither men’s suits?

I live for the day when I can sport a white Iranian collarless shirt worn with considerable style by their nuclear negotiators, but for the moment it may be a long way off. I am off to look for another rebellious splash of colour enshrined in a tie.

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