These days, if I happen to be in the market for a job, there are all sorts of things I look for. For example, I'd like to work in a place that offers challenging work; I'd like to work with smart people; I want to know that I'll be paid above minimum wage... but most important of all, I want to know that I will not have to wear around my neck the patterned noose that people call a tie.
You see, I absolutely hate ties. My idea of good clothing is that it should preserve your modesty, it should be protect you from the elements and most of all, it should be comfortable. (Some people might add that it should be stylish; I will leave that out, as stylishness is definitely in the eye of the beholder.) As far as I am concerned, a tie fails on every one of those criteria. In addition, I hate it that I waste irrecoverable minutes of my life knotting a tie every time I have to dress up formally. I hate it that the tie cannot even keep still but continues to dangle all over the place as I move along. And I truly, truly hate it that the tie suffocates me when I am wearing it.
I'm pretty sure that many other people see the tie as much of an object of hate as I do. After all, have you ever come across anyone who wears his tie to bed? Increasingly, this resentment towards the tie is beginning to show up in Western countries. More and more people are coming to recognise that they can go tie-less with a shirt and jacket without the world coming to an end. But ironically, the most die-hard adherents to tie-wearing can still be found in places like Nigeria, where not only is the tie not part of any indigenous culture but is the equivalent of having a millstone round the neck in Nigeria's extremely hot and humid weather.
"But the tie is part of the de-facto uniform of the international professional world", some will exclaim. "It is sacrilege to suggest that we do without this essential component of fashion. We certainly need to wear it so that we can show the world that we too are corporate".
Nonsense. First of all, as I said before, fewer people in the West itself are wearing ties. Why must we continue to stick to yesterday's fashions when other people are moving on? And even if the tie was still de rigeur in international circles, what is wrong with asserting our own identity and wearing a comfortable version of formal attire in our own various cultures?
"But men's formal international attire is generally very dull", some will again exclaim. "Typically you will find men wearing a light coloured shirt, a dark jacket and a dark suit - very boring. Ties are the only opportunity that men can have to express their inner sense of colour".
Again I say nonsense. Who writes these rules that say that men should wear dark suits and light shirts? What is stopping a man from wearing a red jacket, orange shirt, and a green and pink striped pair of trousers if he wants to fully express his colourful side?
I just think that Nigerians like suffering needlessly. Even during my tie-wearing days, I used to compromise by trying not to pull the tie knot all the way to the neck, and as soon as I was sure that nobody cared whether I was wearing it or not - whoosh - off it would come. But people I have observed wearing ties in Nigeria insist on pulling the knot all the way up to the neck even the sun is beating down mercilessly on them. Maybe this is because Nigerians believe that other Nigerians are impressed by the corporate look, so they never miss an opportunity to show how corporate they are. So perhaps while a man may almost be asphyxiated by his tie, he thinks of it in the same way that a woman thinks of the aching feet of high heels - as a pain worth bearing.
But whatever masochistic thought processes may be going on in the head of the corporate Nigerian, ties remain barred from within a hundred metres of my wardrobe. I have come to cherish the free flow of air round my neck, and I have no desire at all to return to the days when I felt permanently strangulated from having to wear a tie, even hours after removing it.
Long Live Unrestricted Carotid Arteries! Long Live Fully Expanded Windpipes! Down with The Coloured Cord of Contraction!
Shoko Loko Bangoshe (3 Years, 2 months and 17 days of Tie-Free Living)
|
# 
Your Comments
Please make The Square an enjoyable experience for everyone by refraining from gratuitous ad-hominem contributions, defamatory comments and off-topic posting. Such posts will be removed.