How to Really Tie a Tie

So, I've been having to dress nicely more often these days. One thing that continues to be a work-in-progress is tying a tie (not to mention folding a pocket silk). I think I've finally figured out a method for tying a good solid, symmetrical and tight knot with the dimple in the tie under the knot (which Bob Glushko refers to as "wall street cleavage").

Here's a pictoral tutorial that I've cooked up...

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1. For the knot I'm going to use, you need the fat end of the tie to be a bit farther down than usual. Start at a foot or so:

   

2. Cross the fat end over the skinny and hold them together as shown with the thumb of your left hand.

   

3. Bring the fat end around the skinny, keeping a firm grasp with your left thumb on the nexus of the two ends.

   

4. Bring the fat end up and through the knot, so that the fat end now has the label side facing forward (towards the mirror).

   

5. Bring the fat end around in front from left to right.

   

6. Then bring the fat end behind and up and through ending as shown.

   

7. Pause for a second. You should have an emerging triangular knot and you should still have a good deal of fat end left.

   

8. Bring the fat end down and through the knot, forming a loose knot and making sure that you aren't creasing the edges inside the knot. You'll want to have no less length in the fat end of the tie at this point. If you have less fat end than I do in this picture, you should start over and concentrate on making a firmer knot (start with more fat end).

   

9. Gently tighten the knot just until it's about 1-2" from being snug on your neck.

   

10. Here we begin to get into how to make the dimple. First grab the fat end part of the tie sticking through the knot and fold it neatly in half with the thumb and middle finger of your right hand. With your left hand flat, put it between the skinny and fat ends of the tie emerging from the knot, right under the knot. There should be no contact between the skinny and fat parts.

    

11. To get here, stick your pointer finger into the crease of the tie to make a wave (this will become the dimple). Stick your pointer finger up through the knot to make sure the trough (soon to be dimple) extends up through the knot. You should end up here at first, with a wide trough where the dimple should be and a fat triangular knot.

    

12. Here's where we do the dimple: put your pointer finger back in the trough underneath the knot and really tighten that knot snug. You want the only thing coming out of the bottom of that knot to be the fat end of the tie folded up with the trough being pinched substantially into a dimple. Note how we're not done yet; while we have the dimple, the triangular part of the knot itself looks like crap.

    

13. Here's the end result. To fix the triangluar part of the knot (which might have looked like crap from the dimplifying tightening you gave it), stick a finger up into the triangular knot from above and smooth out the face of the triangle. You may have to move some things within the knot to get it to look decent (don't worry, this sucker is not coming undone).

    

14. Don't forget to tuck the skinny end in the thing that holds it in the back of the tie.

    

While I did sort of a weird half-windsor knot here (which ends up being fatter and you end up with less tie length), the dimple directions should work for any knot from above.