This fellow is doing many things well. There’s some decent layering action. The heavy reliance on black works to some degree. He’s scoring with the undone terribly skinny black tie. The collar width appears to be in balance with the skinniness of the tie. The leather sport coat is masculine and determined. With that look of confidence, he could have walked right off the cover of any of many local men’s magazines. Shine is matched with sheen and that matches his attitude toward life.
That said, I am growing sick of the shiny black super skinny tie. I would urge him to pick up a knit tie, though his outift might be too shiny for it. Let me advise him that we live in an era that favors nubbiness and knit ties are pretty much at the peak of their hipness in the US and in Japan and South Korea.
If extreme popularity reveals what is already over the hill in terms of the cool factor, the skinny knit tie is over. Look at production rather than the streets. Every factory is doing huge orders of poly and silk 2 inch solid ties for Next, Topman, and every other mainstream brand under the sun. There are actually very few factories that have invested in the relatively inexpensive machines that make knit ties. Just based on the numbers of orders, knit sock ties remain an exclusive item in the field of trendy ties. Also, the production cost of the cheapest knit ties is more than doubled that of the cheapest woven ties.
