goodbye, tie clip

Before I post this Tuesday's tacky tie, I'll point out a piece by Paul Devlin: a tie clip elegy.

The tie clip is as functional as it ever was. If you are in the habit of standing up to shake hands, it helps to have one. (Such ornaments also draw attention to a nice tie, as T.S. Eliot noted in the "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.") And in those increasingly rare pockets of the world where jeans will never be considered a "dressy" option for men (such as some churches and private clubs), the tie clip may indeed hold out. But today it is mostly seen as old-fashioned, out-of-style, or aggressively dandyish.

I've never been one to wear a tie clip, finding it not so much antiquated as bulky and distracting. Still, nearly everyone I've ever seen wearing one was over the age of 50. Devlin thinks there may be hope for a tie clip resurgence, but that would require a general return to sharp dressing, which is at least a generation away.

Not that I'm old or anything.