A few Fridays ago, the Irreal Red Meat Friday featured a Lifehacker article on why you should throw your neckties away. At the time, I mentioned that although most Irreal readers would be on-board with the idea of doing away with neckties, most of the commenters were offended with the idea although they could adduce no reason to support their position.
Antonio García Martínez reminds us of an earlier time when it was very unusual to see a man in pubic without a hat and that doesn’t mean a baseball cap. Men wore Stetsons, Fedoras, Derbys, or similar headgear. It was, in short, exactly the same situation we now find ourselves in with ties. Then John Kennedy chose not to wear a hat during his inauguration and everything changed.
This is like when JFK neglected to wear a hat to his inaugural address and doomed formal headwear to a swift grave. https://t.co/yj9UHRJAnR
— Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth) 🇺🇦 (@antoniogm) June 26, 2022
As Martínez’s referenced tweet shows, not a single leader at the G7 wore a tie in the group photo. Martínez hints that this could be the bellwether for the end of neckties. One can only hope.