Trying and Tying the Tie: Chapter 1: How to tie a neck-tie!

In my opinion, nothing looks better on a man than a well tailored suit, shirt and the perfect tie.

In business, even though no Billionaires wear them, ties are still a fairly essential part of work attire. Furthermore a tie can be the difference between looking good and looking fantastic.

There are a few things you need to consider when looking at the tie in terms of classic style. There are conventions around how to tie them, where to wear them and how to match them to what you are wearing. Let's explore a few of these things so that you can wear a tie with more confidence.

In this, the first chapter of my Trying and Tying the Tie series we will look at how to tie a neck-tie correctly.

There are two main ways that ties are knotted in the modern world. The first, and probably the most well known, yet least popular, is the Windsor knot. The second and most widely used is the four-in-hand knot.

In my opinion there are times and places to wear both, and I don't think a lot of people get the difference. The Windsor is a formal knot, very popular amongst high-flying business men. It takes skill to tie and, sometimes, it can take a few goes if you are like me and have an array of ties of different lengths and thicknesses. The trick with the Windsor is practice. I find that now I know how, I just want to use this knot all the time.

Here is a great graphical representation on how to tie a Windsor knot correctly.


This diagram is courtesy of www.tieknot.com. They are a great place to learn all you need to know about tie knots.

The Windsor knot is a more formal knot and not widely used in every day scenarios these days. It was made famous by the Duke of Windsor and, thus, is regarded as about as formal as knot tying can get.

Here's my attempt: It's quite an impressive knot. I like the way the line matches up. It makes it look like it's meant to be tied this way.

Photo's courtesy Emily Ehlers.

Now, for every day knots. The most popular one here is the four-in-hand knot. This is the one that your parents should have taught you when you were young. If they didn't, that's OK; I can show you right here. This one is generally used when you have a small space between the collars of your shirt. This is a smaller knot - not the smallest - however it is probably the most popular knot in the world in terms of the number of people using it every day.


This diagram is courtesy of www.tieknot.com. They are a great place to learn all you need to know about tie knots.

This method creates a smaller knot and is more casual. This is a great one for every day work attire and dressy family occasions. Here's what it looks like when I do it. You can see that it's longer and thinner than the Windsor knot. With this shirt, I think the Windsor looks better - because of the gap where the top button is. If the gap was smaller this smaller knot would look better.

Photo's courtesy Emily Ehlers.

According to me, and yes I am using myself as an authority here, these are the only knots you should need to know when it comes to tying a neck-tie. There are a couple of other methods that you can use, however:

1. The half-Windsor. This is much like the four-in-hand knot, however it has the twist of the Windsor knot.
2. The small knot. This knot twists the tie 180 degrees under the collar which enables the wearer to do a half-four-in-hand style knot. This is the smallest knot you can get. Quite realistically, however, unless you are borrowing your 10 year old nephew's school tie, you shouldn't need to use this one in adult life.

This brings me to my next chapter: Where to wear a tie...

Watch out for my next chapter - "Where to wear a tie" in the next couple of days.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment.