The perfect tie knot

Since we're handing out fashion advice, does anyone have any tips for sure-fire ways to button a double-button collar? I hate those damn things, but it seems like the sharpest-looking shirts all have them.

Unfortunately, buy a size bigger doesn't really work where I am now -- less variation in sleeve length. If I go any bigger on my collars, the sleeves will come down to my knuckles.

 

I'm tying the knot this summer, and good grief is it a headache.

 

Fans of James Bond will know that he felt that the Windsor knot was the "mark of a cad".

I've always felt the GQ style guy has the best mens fashion advise:


Shirts & ties
What's wrong with a Windsor knot?
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Another continuing 007 saga. What I don’t like, and what I think Messrs. Bond and Fleming didn’t like, is the overly precise and symmetrical look of this knot; one associates it with Felix Unger and his nerd-dandy compadres, often characterized as anal retentive. The Windsor is not, typically, what one would call devil-may-care. To appear well-dressed, it’s best to create the impression that you got dressed without studying a mirror. Windsors look fine with a spread collar if they aren’t too big, but they aren’t the best all-purpose knot. Which reminds me that in Italy last summer, I noticed a huge vogue for big tie knots. Then I saw a tie I loved in a store and bought it, and as I attempted to tie it I noticed that it seemed yards long. The only way I could make the thing work was to just keep looping around the knot. Turns out that’s the correct technique. I call it the four-by-four-in-hand. If your tie is overhanging your penis, try it.

 

I use the four-in-hand, but I am mostly a buttondown-collar guy.

 

Talbott sells ties ranging in price from $85 to $245, so there are varying degrees of quality. I have never seen a bad one (though plenty of ugly ones). But I have seen some at Nordstrom Rack that were of thinner material. I don't know how well those knot. The Talbotts I have are from the 1980s and I think they were $40 when I bought them. I'm not sure where they'd rank on today's Talbott pecking order, but they are fairly hefty silk.

Good advice from Cranberry on thrift stores. I have found really nice, classic ties for a buck or two. I try to forget about this:

http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/article/SB125859205137154753.html

 

I've been thinking a zip-up may work.

 

Works for me.

Forgive me, GQ.

 

Sorry, shirt AND tie.

 

I tie my ties (or get them tied at the cleaners) and keep them knotted. Lazy, I know.

 

I like the Windsor on a guy, but I love the half. Four-in-hand tells me he doesn't really have any idea about ties.

 

Another disadvantage to being ... what's the term I saw for me at Busch Gardens? Oh right, "a person of exceptional size". So anyway, another disadvantage of being a giant fat fucking scumbag loser is that I need extra long ties, and the selection for those are pretty small, even at the big and fat store in town.

 

Or you don't. Alan Flusser's "Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion" (2002) says:

"Although two knots, the Windsor and half-Windsor, still enjoy limited use, the four-in-hand remains the preferred knot for most facial types and for the world's most elegantly attired men."

He also quoyes Luciano Barbera on why he switched from the Windsor to the four-in-hand: "Now I find that what I want is a less-fussed-over knot with a soft pleating. It is simple. It is declarative. It feels right."