The End of Life As We Know It

Surely these are signs – if not of The End, at least the end of life as we know it. Two stories reported this week in The Wall Street Journal signal such a shift. One noted the anticipated quiet death of the Men’s Dress Furnishings Association, the trade group representing American tie makers. Why would such a venerable organization limp into an organizational grave? Fewer and fewer people are wearing ties. The article pointed out the dwindling membership – from 120 manufacturers in the 1980’s to a current 25. When even the manufacturers of ties can’t work up enough enthusiasm to attempt promotion, the outlook for this staple of sartorial brilliance seems grim. I haven’t been blind to the changes. Churches, once the reliable show window of neckwear each week, have grown more and more casual. And “business casual” policies have unbuttoned shirt collars in cubicles across the country. Alas, even I – who finds little quite as joyous as ordering a new bowtie from my specialty supplier in Vermont – have come to work today in a knit crew neck shirt.

And if men are abandoning their necks, women are doing the same with their legs. The Wall Street Journal reports today that pantyhose are likewise going the way of the dinosaur. Businesses are relaxing their dress codes for women as well as men, and hose have been the first to go. “Younger women don’t even think about pantyhose,” observes Kathy Garland of the Northern Dallas area for the National Association of Women Business Owners.

Ties, pantyhose, and now garbage. U.S.A. Today recently chronicled the crisis stifling the residents of Naples, Italy where full landfills and inadequate incinerators are resulting in the crushing and suffocating accumulation of garbage in the streets – at a rate of 5 tons a minute. I know that sounds impossible, but I’m looking at the article and that is what it says: five tons a minute. In the weeks since this story first appeared, a German company has seen in Naples’ garbage a potential goldmine, and has entered into an agreement to receive and incinerate massive shipments of this precious Italian refuse…for a price.

So there you have it. Once the world created art and invented technologies and shared precious gems and engaged in worldly conversations with dignity. Now we are producing and exporting and importing garbage – at least some of which no doubt includes discarded ties and pantyhose. Is there a connection? I doubt it. But who knows? To paraphrase that great theologian Forrest Gump, “Pretty is as pretty does.”

Surrounded by garbage and looking, well, “casual,” I’m thinking there still might be time today to go home and put on a tie.