On Tuesday, news piled up about the Trump administration's use of signal group chat to discuss military strikes, FBI director Kash Patel found himself facing a Senate committee on the intelligence news. He looked like a prep school sitting in custody.
His striped tie was yank from the center, and the top buttons of his dress shirt were not noticeably dismantled, as if there was too much convergence on his neck.
But by Trump's cabinet standards, there was nothing about Patel's Dorito-shaped tie. After all, wide Windsor knots, a symmetrical loop about Labrador's foot size, have become the standard for management.
The central figure in the group chat fiasco, Defense Secretary Pete Hegses, prefers a plump knot that lacks dimples, giving the look of a child-drawn tie. Secretary of State Marco Rubio Sean Duffy and EPA administrator Transport Secretary Lee Zeldin likewise prefer a scaled knot somewhere between meatballs and dinner rolls.
In Trump's Congress speech in early March, his satiny blue tie was looped into a flat, wide knot when Kuzi leader Elon Musk finally swapped out his graphic T-shirt for a suit. He may not be officially in Trump's cabinet, but that night he knew the dress code.
The style transcends the West wings. Their official portraits show that Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia, Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Mark Wayne Marin of Oklahoma are followers of the V-shaped ties they fanned. The exterior is less common in the aisle, but some Democrats are Windsor Sticklers, preceded by this administration. In fact, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Delaware Chris Koons show off two fat monkeys fisted knots on the hill.
“It's a new power look,” said G. Bruce Boyer, former fashion editor at Town & Country Magazine.
The 1999 book, The 85 Ways to Tie A Tie, shows many of the more esoteric ways of rocking silk around the neck, but today he only uses a handful of knots. According to Michelle Cohanzo, president of Chicago's Tiber, Windsor and his brave brother, Double Windsor, are at the end of the entire business on that spectrum. (Windsor knot was named after the Duke of Windsor, but he didn't actually use the knot. He just wore a thick tie.)
“Historically, you'll wear it to a really formal or important event,” Kohanzo said. But today, even the former president abandons connections in public places, so most men wear ties only for formal events and workplaces. So Windsor is now the default.
That wasn't always the case in the White House.
In 2001, the Los Angeles Times stated that George W. Bush “was his tie. Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden likewise prefer the asymmetric knot that failed to fill the full cavity in the collars of their shirts.
Trump's cabinet has outliers, especially among those who have become older than preppy fashion. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a skinny connection that is looped in a compact hold, the size of an immature tulip.
However, among relatively young members of the Trump administration (below 55 years old), there appears to be a common idea that a wide knot conveys authority.
“It says, 'What are we going to do about it?” “Boyer said. He even ventured to what was happening with these tie knots: “Freudians.” “Mine is bigger than you,” he offered.
As someone old enough to remember that John F. Kennedy's cabinet caused a stir by wearing a tweed sports coat, Boyer believes that the only tie technique everyone really needs is a huge four hand loop.
Trump himself may not wear the widest tie in Washington, but he prefers big, simple and bright clothes that remind him of the 1980s.
“This kind of power dressing from the '80s, '90s is back,” Kohanzo said. If men wear ties at all, they embrace them on the Gordon Gecco scale.
The bestseller at Tie Bar is the 3-inch “moderately fatty tie,” Kohanzo said, selling even larger tie and a shirt with a prominent collar.
Business leaders such as Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai were wearing Windsor knots when they attended Trump's inauguration in January. Mr. Bezos rarely wears a tie in public, but when he does, he tends to prefer Windsor. At NBC, sports commentators like Tim Howard have adopted this knot. And Jamie Dimon's tie loops are not similar to those worn in the White House.
“There's nothing subtle about it,” Boyer said. “Everything is a little oversized, shiny, flashy, shiny.”
