Tie on top, denim on the bottom. How she sees it.

Ask A Woman:  Yay or Nay – Guys wearing ties with jeans.

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Hi Beth:

What’s your opinion on guys who wear ties with jeans?  Is it a good look?  Bad Look?  Does the collar have to be unbuttoned?  Is this all just trying to be “too” cool?

Greg

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Hi Greg,

Well, I’ve avoided your question for many moons now, because I keep going back and forth: ties with jeans are way douchey; ties with jeans can look kinda slick.  At some point, though, I have to take a stand.  Here it is. Mostly, ties with jeans looks lame.  I say “mostly,” because in select situations, it looks fine.  I see you on the street in your is-it-casual-or-is-it-not? attire and neither gawk in horror nor give you a mental thumbs up.  As soon as you pass by, I forget what you were wearing.

Some people who have managed such mediocrity include Justin Timberlake (who can wear WHATEVER HE WANTS and it’s fine by me), and Frank Muytjens, head designer at J. Crew for menswear (whose head of gorgeous silvery hair may be distracting me).  Some people who have not managed as well include David Beckham (who ruined an otherwise decent ensemble by choosing a too-big cardigan, and not being able to decide whether to tuck in his button-down) and Matthew Morrison from Glee (who looks like he’s here from tech to fix your computer).
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I think my beef with the tie-with-jeans look is that it can’t decide what it is.  Ties are inherently dressy.  Add jeans and it looks like you knew you were supposed to dress up but you couldn’t stand the thought of going all the way, so your compromise was to wear jeans along with the button-down and tie.

Tie plus jeans is the clothing-equivalent of the mullet–business on the top, party on the bottom. And we all know what happened to the mullet.

-Beth

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