Is the necktie dead, or at least dying? The answer is yes, of course. Ties are being worn less and less in the workplace, but what's really interesting to me is a specific change in the calculus of the male dress code. I'll get to that in a minute, but first the numbers. Fortune's resident careers expert, Anne Fisher, author of our Ask Annie newsletter, did some digging and found that annual tie sales in the U.S. peaked in 1995 at $1.8 billion, according to the NPD Group. By 2008 that number had tumbled to $677 million. Sales have perked back up to about $850 million a year as we've emerged from the Great Recession -- no doubt some of that volume is from hopefuls picking up a tie at Brooks Brothers before a job interview. In any event, it's hard to see the tie biz ever again hitting the levels of two decades ago. (It should be noted that the increasing number of women in the workplace does nothing for tie sales ... Fortunately, those horrid 1980s women's ties never caught on.)
Image: http://money.cnn.com
To read the original article: The tie is so old school - Feb. 27, 2014
