How wide is your necktie?

**Duggo** · 09-23-2009, 05:39 PM

Thin is in by me. 2 - 2 1/2 inches at the most. Only because, now that I've tried a thin necktie, everything else looks...too wide.

What's your preference?

**Shane** · 09-23-2009, 05:41 PM

It depends on what shirt/suit I'm wearing.

**Duggo** · 09-23-2009, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by Shane

It depends on what shirt/suit I'm wearing.

What tie widths have you been known to wear?

**gumbo** · 09-23-2009, 05:50 PM

I prefer thin, a la Madmen Don Draper.

**Shane** · 09-23-2009, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by Duggo

What tie widths have you been known to wear?

All of them. Seriously, in professional or more casual settings, you can make skinny and wide ties look good. I even like to wear bow ties.

**The Knize** · 09-23-2009, 10:41 PM

3.5 "

**Scentronic** · 09-24-2009, 07:18 AM

It should depend on a few different things.

A thin tie goes best on a thin person, and on a suit with thin lapels. They are more suited for a spread collar than a point or button-down collar, and are sometimes worn with the top button unbuttoned.

Also, thin ties should not be worn in formal or traditional settings.

These are all things that I've read over at askandyaboutclothes.com - the suiting equivalent of what basenotes is to fragrances. These guys are connoisseurs, and favor suits in the several-thousand-dollar range. They seem to know what they're talking about!

I've got a few thin ties, and I'll get more.

**Monkeydad** · 09-24-2009, 08:52 AM

I thought thin ties were an 80s thing?

I wear "standard" size, I guess. Have about 50 of them. I have a couple of thin ties from a long time ago, basic black ones...they just don't look right anymore to me.

**Duggo** · 09-24-2009, 06:09 PM

Originally Posted by buster

I thought thin ties were an 80s thing?

I wear "standard" size, I guess. Have about 50 of them. I have a couple of thin ties from a long time ago, basic black ones...they just don't look right anymore to me.

I hear what you are saying. I can't get up the courage to wear a thin tie to work. But, I love 'em.

(see post #1 for more clarification.) And also, no one in our area wears a tie, so...I'd stick out like a sore thumb.

**Duggo** · 09-24-2009, 06:11 PM

Originally Posted by gumbo

i prefer thin, a la madmen don draper.

+1

**Duggo** · 09-24-2009, 08:30 PM

Originally Posted by Scentronic

It should depend on a few different things.

A thin tie goes best on a thin person, and on a suit with thin lapels. They are more suited for a spread collar than a point or button-down collar, and are sometimes worn with the top button unbuttoned.

Also, thin ties should not be worn in formal or traditional settings.

These are all things that I've read over at askandyaboutclothes.com - the suiting equivalent of what basenotes is to fragrances. These guys are connoisseurs, and favor suits in the several-thousand-dollar range. They seem to know what they're talking about!

I've got a few thin ties, and I'll get more.

Where do you find a suit with thin lapels these days? And shirts with narrow collars? (see link below for example.)

Thin lapels: you mean like this?

I also read in another thread here at B&B, that when you wear a thin tie, a narrow collar is a "MUST" to quote the B&B member. (please reference the link above for an example.)

**SRock** · 09-24-2009, 09:25 PM

I think it totally depends on what you are wearing, how you are built, collar type, color of both suit (or shirt) and tie. There are many variables.

Originally Posted by Shane

All of them. Seriously, in professional or more casual settings, you can make skinny and wide ties look good. I even like to wear bow ties.

I'm with Shane on this one.

**skklog** · 09-24-2009, 09:33 PM

I like a stranded width tie myself ( I own about 30 so it varies a little)

**Duggo** · 09-29-2009, 09:12 AM

Let me preface this by saying: It's one thing to read about on a forum. It's quite another to see a Fashion Disaster before your very eyes reinforcing what someone said in the forum, as to "fashion etiquette"

(Is there such a thing?)

The person I saw was tall and stocky. He was wearing a sports jacket with quite narrow lapels. His tie was much wider than the lapel of his jacket, which validates the indirect quote of another member that I posted in an above post.

In my opinion: narrow lapels when paired with narrow ties are essential to complete the sense of symmetry, and balance. I would say narrow collars should be worn with a narrow ties.

**King of Kailua** · 09-29-2009, 09:43 AM

What is this thing you are calling a necktie?

**Duggo** · 09-29-2009, 10:05 AM

Originally Posted by King of Kailua

What is this thing you are calling a necktie?

Oh. Sorry about that. They are ties: as in what he is wearing

I think the common width of a tie is 3.25 inches. You won't find it chiseled in stone anywhere

In the end, it's all about what looks good on you. Not what the latest fashion models in Pa-ree are wearing.

**richmondesi** · 09-29-2009, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by King of Kailua

What is this thing you are calling a necktie?

**D.Irving79** · 09-29-2009, 11:08 AM

a lot of what ive been wearing lately is real thin and short squared knit ties.

**Ponce** · 09-29-2009, 04:21 PM

I have noticed that thin ties seem to be making a modest come back (if it is possible; during what appears to be the steady demise of the necktie altogether).

I personally like them, but haven't been able to readily find them, other than "designer" mod/retro styles.

**The Knize** · 09-29-2009, 05:06 PM

No dis, but there has been something of an air of unreality in this thread. I bet most of us wore that width of tie that the stores where sellilng when we bought the particular tie. And over my life time ties widths have varied depending upon the particular year over a range of say 2.75" to 4.0." But stores were much in lock step with perhaps Brooks Brothers changing less and Ben Silver pretty much sticking with 3.25" no matter what. (Earlier I said my ties were 3.5". I would say more of my ties are 3.25".)

The not so subtle thing being that the width of the tie and the width of a suit lap should be in balance, and if those things are changed around from time to time, a lot more clothing is going to be sold. I like askandy.com a lot and perhaps their are folks over there that buy their suits and ties to match things about their own build, but I bet most are in the position most of us are. We buy what the stores are currently selling.

However, for the first time I have very seen it in main stream stores, as opposed to say a New Wave hipster store, more than one width of tie is starting to be offered. Land's End, for instance, is offering ties in 2.75" and 3.5," with shirts with smaller "varsity" collars to go with them. One review I read referred to these as "smaller, more modern collars." So I have no question that narrower ties are coming back. Also some of the widths of suit lapels I have seen on the racks are very narrow, which just confirms things for me. Where a 3.75" wide tie with one of those and you are going to look like you are wearing drapes, I do not care have tall, short, fat, or skinny you might be.

I actually think 3.5" wide in a tie is going to look a little too wide and out of style within a couple of years and 3.25" would be more the standard width in Fall 2009. So even on the narrow ties it is a drop in width of 0.50 inch, which is not so, so extreme.

Also, I think that men tend to wear their ties a little narrower than what is most common, if they are going to deviate from whatever the most current common width is. That is, I think at any given time lots of guys might go narrower, but it is an unusual guy that that will be sporting that 3.75" tie is the standard goes to 2.75"