How To Tie A Tie: A Gentleman’s Guide To Getting Dressed, by Potter Style

[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Blogging For Books/Potter Style in exchange for an honest review.]

It is a bit of a shame that this short book (it comes in at about 130 short pages, many of them filled with pictures) does not include an author, as it is the sort of book that would do credit to someone in writing about the subject of how a gentleman ought to dress. This book was clearly written and designed with a lot of forethought, with a lot of fine details, including the fact that the cover of this book is a patterned fabric that should remind the book’s readers of the shape and texture of a tie with diagonal pinstripes. Touches like this demonstrate the care and concern of the authors to create a book that encourages gentlemen to dress in a way that is classy and that is full of self-expression, rather than a slavish devotion to trends. After all, a gentleman communicates on all levels, and knowing how to communicate one’s personality through clothing, and to dress appropriately for every situation, is a matter of often-neglected importance.

In terms of its contents, this book certainly lives up to its name. The book begins by looking at the fundamentals of ties—fabrics, patterns, and colors, setting the tone that weather and not season should justify clothing choices for maximum personal comfort, and helping encourage an understated if quirky personal style that matches in shade, fabric, and pattern. After this come three chapters of different knots for ties, all of which are demonstrated with step-by-step pictures. Each knot comes with an explanation of its name and what fabric/pattern it works best with, and it even attempts to write in such a way as to be valid for both left and right-handed methods, which is a difficult task to attain. The knots for ties are divided between classic, effortless, and bold knots, and some of these appear to be ones that are worth experimenting with. The book even shows how to tie a bow tie, and encourages the imperfect and uniquely personal effort of tying a bow tie for oneself as a form of personal expression. After this the book ends with a look at wardrobe details like collar style and the use of tie pins as well as cuff links, and finishes appropriately with a look at finishing touches like dealing with shoes, trousers, and jackets, and even different styles of watches for different occasions.

Although this book is short and intensely practical in its intent, it is precisely the sort of book that ought to provoke its readers into a variety of thoughts. For one, it makes for an excellent practical book as a birthday or Father’s Day present for a gentleman known for sartorial interests. For another, this is the sort of book that assumes its reader has a fairly substantial clothing budget—it assumes that its male reading audience, for example, would have their own personal tailors, have up to six different types of formal shoes, several types of wristwatches, aside from several types of suits and ties and dress shirts. It assumes its readers will be generally knowledgeable about formal and dress casual events and that its readers will dress up on a regular basis for work as well as for social activities. For those readers of more modest socioeconomic status, this book represents a classic form of male aspirational reading, as a way of acquiring the fundamentals of class so as to better ask when our means reach up with our knowledge. As such, this is the sort of book that is designed for a professional and cultured audience, where any gentleman would aspire to be, and a sort of book that correspondingly brings both pleasure as well as useful insight in how a gentleman can use a skilled awareness of clothing to communicate his own personality and character to others. Who among us has no wish to communicate better?