How To Wear A Tie Bar

I was having an after work cocktail with an associate who is a dear friend. My friend, who admittedly has more fashion sense than I do, asked me what did I know about "tie bars."

I said, "Well I know that Thai bars are making their trade in the sexual tourist industry." He repeated, "No I mean tie bars?" Still confused, I said, 'You mean bars where you must wear a ties to gain admittance?" At this point, my friend was ready to hit me on the head with something, when he said, "No I mean tie bars. Those little metal things that hold your tie in place!" I pretended to understand what he meant, after all I had heard of tie clasps, tie tacks, tie pins, and tie clips, so why not add ties bars to the mix? I shook my head slowly up and down in agreement. He nodded his head serenely, and wandered off. Moments later I saw him drift out the door with a lady on his arm.

I am not one that is easily thwarted. So after my friend left to go on to another non-tie bar without me, I decided to go to the men's department in an upscale department store on New York's Fifth Avenue, you know the one that sounds like "sucks". Their men's clothes and men's' fashion are fabulous, but what "sucks" is that, in these current economic times, I cannot afford their prices. I would have to take a mortgage on my two ex-wives' kid's college fund to buy anything. When I want to be really tempted I go there. But, I was determined to get up to speed on the current fashion trends of tie bars. After all there is no charge for looking.

Right away I found men ties, and then very nonchalantly I strolled around until I saw the tie bars. There was a whole case full of them! One especially caught my eye. It was marked over $200.
The tie bar is an excellent invention that was made to basically hold the shorter more narrow rear part of the worn tie pressed firmly against the wider part of the tie that is in front. They typically go across the entire width of the tie to provide their functionality, and also to be very decorative. Pick one that matches the approximate width of your tie, when tied, so that the tie bar is about 1/3 of the way down the tie from your neck, and shows smarty through the opening of your suit jacket.

Pick a nice looking one, match gold to gold and silver to silver if you also use cufflinks and that is about it. They can be both wide as well as rather large. I imagine for the larger ones, a good use for them, if they ever go out of fashion, would be to use them as a money clip. I asked the salesman to show me some of the tie bars. In a very Fifth Avenue way , he replied, "And may I ask what kind of tie bars, the gentleman is interested in looking at?" I looked around to see what gentlemen he was referring to and then looked back at him and realized he meant me.

Now was my time to shine! Having avoided the earlier faux pas of not really knowing about tie bars with my friend who was too drunk to notice, I boldly asked the store clerk to show me the tie bars that were the most in fashion. The clerk took one step back, made a grand waving gesture at the case full of tie bars, and replied, 'Sir, EVERYTHING we have here is at the utmost height in fashion!".

Then he stepped back as if I needed to hand him a Gold credit card in order to continue, so I retreated. I left the store thinking it's no wonder I can never afford to buy anything there. Excuse the pun, but they set the bar too high. I decided to go to a regular sports bar and have a few beers to cool down.

On the way I passed a discount men's store and to my delight I saw the same exact tie bar I had seen in the high-priced department store for an affordable $19.99. I went in and bought it immediately. After all it was the height of fashion! Later, those cheap happy hour sport bar beers tasted real good, and lesson learned - It is not so much how much you pay for something that makes fashion sense, it is knowledge about it and most importantly how it makes you feel to acquire it. And it feels so much better at a discount!