The Italians have mastered the insouciance of the slightly off-center knot — some even leave the narrower end a bit longer,<br />letting it peek out from behind the thicker one in front, as if to say, I really couldn’t be bothered to redo it.<br />But the president makes the front end much too long — it hangs far below his waistline<br />— while the narrower end sits, stubby and forlorn, only inches below his collar.<br />In past eras such posturing could be unlawful: The overstuffing of one’s codpiece, for instance, was considered such an affront to public order in Renaissance England<br />that offenders were forced to march through the streets with their stuffing pulled out — their deception exposed for all to see<br />One should fasten a necktie so that the front falls just at the waist, then thread<br />the narrow end through the loop on the back of the front one to keep it in place.<br />Lost in the excitement and outrage of Donald Trump’s first three weeks as president of the United States<br />was a minor sartorial scandal: The putative leader of the free world cannot tie a necktie properly.<br />If the Italian’s tie shows an aristocratic disdain for the trappings of masculine potency, Mr. Trump’s symmetrical<br />but overlong tie stands out like a rehearsed macho boast, crass and overcompensating.<br />As a consequence, the too-short, narrower end cannot reach the loop on the overlong wider end,<br />and the two threaten to go off in separate directions, like cabinet members with competing agendas.
