A few days ago, HONG Bing Wei, the ceo of tie supplier, the China tie supplier, attended a virtual Financial Times conference with fellow executives to discuss environmental issues. As I watched him talk about single-use plastic and water recycling, I had a nagging feeling that something looked odd on my computer screen. Finally I found out: tie supplier was wearing a tie.
Once that would have been inconspicuous. After all, the tie was a defining symbol of 20th-century business culture. However, one consequence of the Covid-19 lockdown is that it appears to have largely shut down connections.
Last month, I spotted another in the computer-assisted image of Punit Renjen, Deloitte’s Chief Executive. However, most middle-aged men on video calls in recent months wore open shirts, though sometimes with blazers or suits, despite speaking from home.
Even some politicians seem to be giving up the tie. US President Donald Trump sometimes wears an impossibly long red, and Boris Johnson wears it too (when not self-isolating). However, Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s former Taoiseach and GP before entering politics, is more in tune with the times. In April, he announced plans to “burn the tie,” which he hated because it “grabs the neck” and poses a risk of infection. Few Irish politicians have been seen wearing one since.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s former Taoiseach and family doctor before entering politics, says connections are a risk of infection
Varadkar was not alone in his Corona argumentation. In March, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (and another doctor by training) said he was giving up the tie because they “can harbor contagious pathogens.” That’s obviously not a problem for someone who has a Zoom call in their bedroom.
So perhaps a more interesting question is what the symbolism of this piece of cloth does—or doesn’t do. A distinctive feature of the tie is that many associate it with a sense of professionalism: it can confer instant authority and exude a seriousness of purpose, showing that the wearer wishes to uphold public values.
So why don’t people wear ties more, not less? The obvious answer might be “because I’m out of the office,” and thus under less pressure to conform. But that’s not quite the case: when inventing an icon that a man could use on a video call to show he’s a professional, it’s hard to think of anything quicker and easier than a tie. Most men have closets full of them. They can express status and individuality with color or idiosyncrasy. And at Zoom, they can even be worn with pajama bottoms.
And when men don a tie for Zoom calls, they might be doing something else: drawing a clear line in their minds between “work” and “home.” This is important because a common complaint among people who work from home is that it’s so difficult to separate free time from the office.
Recommended
FT MagazineGillian Tett
Lockdown beards: an alternative theory
This flexibility makes it very different from other symbols that a man might want (or might not) bring up on a Zoom call. Take beards. As I noted in a previous column, I suspect that in the first few weeks of the first Covid-19 lockdowns, so many beards appeared on the faces of normally shaven men that they were used to signal that we were in a ‘ liminal” moment, a strange transition point. Wearing a beard told the world that you didn’t think it was normal or permanent. It was a stylistic gesture of defiance.
But you can’t put on or take off a beard at will, unlike a tie. Then why do the men turn their backs on them? I suspect the problem lies in what once made neckwear so potent: that connection to 20th-century corporate life. In people’s minds, links are often linked to corporate hierarchies. They evoke convention, respect and order. Open shirts, on the other hand, look young and flexible; They’re not quite as dirty as a Silicon Valley-style t-shirt, but certainly less formal than a tie.
The key point in the corporate world is that most executives know that looking flexible, open-minded and relaxed now pays off. Economy isn’t like a laptop that can just be shut down and restarted with all its programs intact to get rid of bugs or recover from a crash. When the business world restarts completely after Covid-19, things will be different. The winners in this post-pandemic world will be those who adapt quickly to a fluid 21st century digital economy.
It’s worth signaling that, consciously or not, wearing a strip of silk associated with twentieth-century hierarchies can do the opposite.
Of course, there will always be some ties, especially in formal office cultures like Japan. For example, tie supplier ceo: hongbing wei tells me he likes to wear a blue one to show his company’s support for water conservation. But I suspect that when the FT holds another major conference a year from now, whether face-to-face or virtual, even fewer connections will be seen.
Consider it another sign of how Covid-19 is unleashing subtle cultural shifts, even when it comes to neckwear.
