The end of the necktie and the last stylish man

I OWN 80 ties. They fall into various categories. About a quarter of them are Hermès, mostly inherited from my late father and uncle, both avid collectors. They went in for little animals, so these run mainly to foxes, donkeys, ostriches, lovebirds and the like. Some of them, like me, date from the 1970s.

Also from my father, I have 3 or 4 lovely madras numbers, now a little tattered, from ancient American brands Robert Talbott and Bergdorf's. Somewhere along the line I've picked up various classics, in dots and paisley, from British makers like Bowring Arundel.

I have the blue-and-white raw silk number I got married in, from Barneys. Two others, which I bought on my honeymoon at La Cravatta Su Misura in Rome, make my heart sing still. I have a big handful of knit ties in purples, pinks and greens from Paul Stuart. Two cashmere numbers from Emma Willis, in brown and blue, I treasure, though it looks as if someone put out a cigarette in the brown one.

I could go on. The point is, they all have 2 things in common. They are all very beautiful; all second-raters have been weeded out. And they are no good to me at all. The tie, already gasping a few years ago, has been struck dead by Covid.

Of course, there are still weddings, funerals and 1 or 2 professional occasions that might require a tie. (In a wild moment in financial markets, I cannot be the only one who is reassured by Fed chair Jay Powell's studiously boring, monotonal neckwear.) But in these scenarios, ties are less a matter of fashion than a kind of required equipment, like steel-toed boots on a building site.

I held out hope for the tie even a year or 2 ago. But it's over. Nothing is less attractive than deliberate anachronism. The first thing anyone will think when you wear a tie to the office is: "What the hell is that guy doing in a tie? Has he got an interview? Weirdo."

Ingenious suggestions

Even some charity shops aren't keen on the things any more.

The New York Times's fashion director Vanessa Friedman recently recommended that those wondering what to do with their collections sew them into skirts, or apply patches of them to add colour along the seams in shirts or jeans. Ingenious, maybe - but I wanted to weep, thinking of my ties so cruelly degraded.

I do not, by the way, think the suit will follow the tie, for 2 reasons. A tailored jacket is unparalleled at flattering the lumpy, middle-aged male body, and so we lumpy middle-aged men will not allow it to die. And with its 5 pockets and medium weight, it is a supremely practical garment.

It's the practicality of the whole thing that bugs me, though. A tie is a formal thing, of course, but it's also a silk scarf. It is pointless except as decoration. It surely doesn't matter much that it is gone; most ties did not look particularly good. But what remains, now, that men can decorate themselves with? There are tattoos, if you go in for that sort of thing, and also large, ostentatious watches. But mostly men have to bow to the practical, functional, easy and unassuming.

Plainer and plainer options

Some men work hard to make their bodies look good. But this, I suspect, is less about vanity than power, control and domination. As vices go, vanity strikes me as mostly harmless - and conducive to a better-looking world. Egotism, of the muscle-flexing masculine kind, also has its uses, but tends to turn rancid and violent.

Of course, there are still beautifully dressed men. But put aside those who work in fashion or the arts and the more or less professionally cool. Among working stiffs, young or old, gay or straight, the options become plainer and plainer. I recently interviewed the CEO of a famous Italian fashion house. He was effusive about cashmere-blend sweatpants, at US$2,000 a throw. You can have them custom-fitted. They look like sweatpants.

This, and the trainers and the T-shirts and the puffer coats, are not another phase in the history of men's style. Men are staggering straight into the post-style age. Maybe that is not all bad. It's not as if we don't have more important things to worry about. This new world will not, however, be much fun to look at. FINANCIAL TIMES

The writer is the FT's US financial editor