Then & Now | Are ties officially over? Not in old-fashioned Hong Kong, where the gentleman’s ‘unwelcome nuisance’ is still worn with pride

There may be little practical purpose in knotting a coloured fabric around your neck, but men’s neckties remain de rigueur in certain social stratas – whether as status symbol or conversation starter

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Ties may be considered old-fashioned these days – but not in Hong Kong, it seems. Photo: Shutterstock

Jason Wordie

Published: 11:15am, 12 Sep 2024

Among the few old-fashioned clothing items habitually worn in the modern world is the men’s necktie. Proudly archaic Hong Kong remains one place where neckties are de rigueur in a wide array of social and professional contexts.

For most men, ties remain an unwelcome nuisance – especially in humid summer weather. In The Road (1959), author Austin Coates describes an incident many men have experienced – the sudden requirement to wear a tie when social circumstances demand a more formal appearance than earlier anticipated. “Without a word, he hurried back to his office, and opened the cupboard in which, for emergencies just such as this, he kept a spare coat and tie. The coat smelt musty, and the gold silk in the tie had all been eaten out by some small creature with a liking for gold – a sort of connoisseur. He was adjusting the wretched thing around his damp shirt collar when the phone rang.”

The Road by Austin Coates. Photo: Handout

Nevertheless, without some form or another wrapped firmly around one’s throat like a hangman’s noose, entry to certain places – in particular some clubs, and the bars and dining rooms contained within them – is as impossible as the rich man entering paradise; metaphors about camels and needles’ eyes spring to mind. For some people, a few thousand dollars a go for a piece of carefully stitched silk to drape around one’s neck represents reasonable value for money; in the circles in which they move, where ready cash, and the willingness to flash it about, are the only arbiters of social arrival, perhaps it is.

Other than as a tribal identification signal, the “garment” serves no practical purpose whatsoever. Group associations are inherent to the tie’s continued relevance. Possession and display of the relevant piece of patterned cloth makes plain that one belongs to a certain in-group – and by extension, those without the right and privilege to wear one, most definitely do not. While these forms of necktie signify outward inclusion, they nevertheless remain a subtle means of showing who does not belong. In the most exclusive establishments, not wearing a tribal marker is the thing; after all, why advertise one’s connections when they are simply taken for granted?

A necktie of bright colours, by Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Photo: Handout

With this ulterior utility in mind, neckties are useful conversational starting points in social situations, such as a tedious cocktail party, where finding an opening can be difficult. Observations about the weather and oblique inquiries about how the random stranger in front of you also knows one’s host or hostess – which also help place the stranger somewhere on life’s ladder – seldom make promising starts to a fresh acquaintanceship.