Ties that bind are going the way of the fedora
It's hard to work up a whole lot of sympathy for François Demers, the prison guard who's fighting for the right to wear the old regulation tie (the clip-on kind, for safety) that was once a mandatory part of his uniform.
Going to work with the two top buttons of his blue shirt undone to expose a mandatory flash of black T-shirt, as the new regulations stipulate, is just too infra-dig for Demers. Ties, he told The Gazette's David Johnston this month, are what separate the guards from the inmates.
All this would be more persuasive if Demers hadn't managed - heavens knows how - to persuade the people who hand out workmen's compensation to pay him $3,000 a month to do nothing, simply because his fight to stay knotted has made him too depressed to work.
Still, there's something appealingly noble about Demers's lonely battle to save the tie from going the way of the fedora. There was a time when all authority figures wore a tie of some sort, from prime ministers to police officers and from business executives to bus drivers. Even Murray Westgate, the gas-station attendant who plugged Esso products on Hockey Night in Canada, wore a bow tie. And men wore ties all the time, not just to church or to work. Look at old pictures of hockey games at the Forum and you'll see rows and rows of men in the stands all wearing ties (and fedoras).
In one form or another the tie has been around since the 18th century. Legend has it that it originated with the silk scarves that Balkan dandies wore, and that the French word "cravat" is, in fact, a corruption of "Croat." It eventually became the mark of the properly-dressed man, but it hasn't always been well-regarded. During the First World War, for example, French marshals, corsetted in their high-necked tunics, were suspicious of their British allies' jackets and ties. How, they wondered, could anyone seriously fight a war in a khaki lounge suit?
It would be interesting to know what those marshals would think of modern generals turning up for briefings on Parliament Hill in combat fatigues. And generals aren't the only ones abandoning the tie. Cops, journalists, government clerks, doctors, even many executives have dropped them. Politicians, always quick to spot a trend, have taken to the open-neck look with enthusiasm. If our fractious leaders had one thing in common during the fall federal campaign, it was their apparent disdain for neckwear. Even Stephen Harper, whose face looks oddly incomplete without a Windsor knot tucked under his chin, looked for much of the campaign as as if he were running for a Labour seat in the Knesset rather than a Conservative one in the Commons.
Where will it all lead? Hockey coaches, private-school boys and job supplicants appear to be the only ones who still regard knotted neckwear as de rigueur. Perhaps the tie is too much an emblem of male status to survive in this noisily egalitarian age. But it has also served as a symbol of decorum and respect. Will anything replace it? We can only hope so.
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
It's hard to work up a whole lot of sympathy for François Demers, the prison guard who's fighting for the right to wear the old regulation tie (the clip-on kind, for safety) that was once a mandatory part of his uniform.
Going to work with the two top buttons of his blue shirt undone to expose a mandatory flash of black T-shirt, as the new regulations stipulate, is just too infra-dig for Demers. Ties, he told The Gazette's David Johnston this month, are what separate the guards from the inmates.
All this would be more persuasive if Demers hadn't managed - heavens knows how - to persuade the people who hand out workmen's compensation to pay him $3,000 a month to do nothing, simply because his fight to stay knotted has made him too depressed to work.
Still, there's something appealingly noble about Demers's lonely battle to save the tie from going the way of the fedora. There was a time when all authority figures wore a tie of some sort, from prime ministers to police officers and from business executives to bus drivers. Even Murray Westgate, the gas-station attendant who plugged Esso products on Hockey Night in Canada, wore a bow tie. And men wore ties all the time, not just to church or to work. Look at old pictures of hockey games at the Forum and you'll see rows and rows of men in the stands all wearing ties (and fedoras).
In one form or another the tie has been around since the 18th century. Legend has it that it originated with the silk scarves that Balkan dandies wore, and that the French word "cravat" is, in fact, a corruption of "Croat." It eventually became the mark of the properly-dressed man, but it hasn't always been well-regarded. During the First World War, for example, French marshals, corsetted in their high-necked tunics, were suspicious of their British allies' jackets and ties. How, they wondered, could anyone seriously fight a war in a khaki lounge suit?
It would be interesting to know what those marshals would think of modern generals turning up for briefings on Parliament Hill in combat fatigues. And generals aren't the only ones abandoning the tie. Cops, journalists, government clerks, doctors, even many executives have dropped them. Politicians, always quick to spot a trend, have taken to the open-neck look with enthusiasm. If our fractious leaders had one thing in common during the fall federal campaign, it was their apparent disdain for neckwear. Even Stephen Harper, whose face looks oddly incomplete without a Windsor knot tucked under his chin, looked for much of the campaign as as if he were running for a Labour seat in the Knesset rather than a Conservative one in the Commons.
Where will it all lead? Hockey coaches, private-school boys and job supplicants appear to be the only ones who still regard knotted neckwear as de rigueur. Perhaps the tie is too much an emblem of male status to survive in this noisily egalitarian age. But it has also served as a symbol of decorum and respect. Will anything replace it? We can only hope so.
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
