Oh no, now I've put you off with my low talk.

Thanks Jack, keep story straight, don't talk a lot, don't take a Lordly tone.  Will read Harris.  Any other old money guys you know of?  I'm thinking of modeling myself after Gore Vidal, but dressing more Brooks or Press.

T3B must be quite a cat over on AAAT whoever he is so add him to the list if he isn't there already.

John Calvin not so much.

Bow tie with tweed sport coat, gotta try that.  If only it'll cool off.

As far as being iconic, it really doesn't stand as a representative symbol of anything.  There is no set class of people that tend to be its wearers and so become symbolized by it.  The closest you might come would be black American muslims who were fond of them in the 1960s.

As a side note, while bow ties do not symbolize eccentricity, their wearers will probably be generally regarded as just slightly eccentric if only for wearing a bow tie.

Why it rather than a regular necktie?

It is impossible to accidentally dip it in your soup unless you have extraordinarily slovenly table manners.

Personal choice?

Yes.  In my case, I saw one in a store one day about 16 years ago and thought, "I'll give that a go."

Why not more widespread?

People believe that they are impossible to tie.

I like bowties a lot but as with everything sartorial, a sense of situational appropriateness is so key.


Of course my favorite use is black tie, and I enjoy any opportunity when it's appropriate to dress up a little. But my guess is the gist of this thread is more standard bowties.

I agree with FNB (to the extent that I, in fact, actually wear them this way) that the bowtie looks great with tweeds and also, in my opinion, with houndstooth jackets. 

I generally don't wear them with suits, although I have paired my burgundy with white polka dots number and a navy or grey suit.  Also a madras bowtie I have with a white shirt and navy cotton suit, to church in summer.  However, most bowties seem to me to make a suit look disproportionate somehow, or maybe it's just the wearer within the suit. 

My most frequent uses of the bowtie, besides formal wear,  are at church and at summer parties.  The madras gets a lot of use with blue oxford cloth blazers or just my navy hopsack in the summer.  It'll be brought out with tweed in the winter, but not as frequently. 

As to whether they are mainstream or not:  Few of my law school classmates wear them except one other fellow who is a friend of mine.  Several of the law professors wear them. Through my clerkships at my local small firm as well as an earlier one at the public defender's office, I would say they are definitely worn by lawyers, just not all lawyers.  A number of well-dressed guys from college wore them at graduation, including me. We wanted to look a bit dapper, I think.  Certainly a lot of frat boys I've known can knot a bow and will show up to parties in them. 

If you wear suits every workday, I'd see the bowtie as something to wear once a month, or perhaps once every two...as a means of standing out, as a means of generating interest...the main goal should be to wear it stylishly without becoming "The Bowtie Guy" which is a danger too many overlook...once someone professes to be impressed that he can knot one himself, Bowtie Guy takes to wearing them on at least a weekly, if not daily basis on all occasions that require a tie.  If you wear it once in a while, it makes you stand out in a good, not weird, way.  Also, sometimes interests/attracts women.  Not that they throw themselves at you, but it does generate interest.