I bought all my bow ties crisply untied so I could learn how to tie them. I’ve struggled with the white and yellow ones since they’re bigger than usual, but I’m always pleased with their lopsided results. They’ve been wrinkled in the process.

The lovable eccentricity of a bow tie is how impossible it is to tie it correctly. I’ve watched plenty of YouTube videos on the subject. It’s an exercise in vain. I’ve had some wild successes, but it’s never perfect, nor would I want it to be. 

I got a $100 gift card to a large department store for Christmas. After making my primary rounds in the handbag section today, I still had $49.37 left, enough to buy one of the perfectly tied, $45 Ralph Lauren bow ties hanging like candy on a spindle rack. I picked up an adorable plaid one, only to realize a wink of cloth was sewn on to be the “tie,” holding the whole thing together. Sewn on!

I’m going to go a little overboard now. For so many of us, life is easy. Cars make it so we don’t need to walk from town to town. TV dinner makes it so we don’t have to cook or wait for someone to cook for us. We don’t even need to write anymore, not with keyboards and touch screens. In this culture of automaticity, we lose so much art. We lose the process of doing things. We lose calling cards, chopping vegetables and cursive. Seeing that little stitch on that back of that bow tie irked me. How is it we don’t have enough time to just learn to tie it, whether it looks perfect or not?

I knew it would look fly as hell. I wanted it, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy it. Even with nearly $50 of store credit burning in my pocket, I couldn’t do it. It goes against the very nature of the bow tie.

Half the photos I post on this blog feature flawlessly tight and straight bow ties, and the models look sharp and GQ-worthy. But I just wanna say, for the record, I don’t condone perfection. Just let it flop.

-Katrina