Look of the Week: Joe Jonas and the rise of the casual tie

By Leah Dolan, CNN

(CNN) — On Monday, Joe Jonas arrived at a taping of “Good Morning America” in New York looking a little bit like a high-school English teacher from 1998. His moss green zip-up Jacquemus sweater, worn atop a collared shirt and tie, with blue jeans and a Ford Mustang baseball cap, was a clunky collision of smart casual, but executed with a knowing wink.

Ties, it seems, are no longer formal attire. Once they might have been reserved for weddings, funerals, business meetings, or galas; today they are being worn more liberally — and not necessarily with a suit. Just look at A$AP Rocky, who has been experimenting with styling the accessory in more playful ways. In one 2024 photo, he is seen pairing a Bottega Veneta pinstriped shirt with straight leg denim, a chunky patterned tie and a padded gilet. His counterparts are doing the same. Last May, fellow rapper Pusha T wore a Louis Vuitton tie and white shirt but eschewed the conventional tailored jacket for a zip-up leather hoodie.

After surveying the street style of the attendees at Paris Fashion Week this year, GQ declared the tie was “so back.” Except this time, they looked looser — and often without a blazer in sight.

You can blame Dior’s menswear show in June by Jonathan Anderson, the label’s creative director. Necks were a key focal point for Anderson here. His models’ decolletage was sometimes trussed up in silk cravats, or left entirely bare as they went shirtless under a jacket. When ties did pop up on the runway, they were styled a la naughty school boys — scrunched and worn inside-out, with careless half-popped collars.

Anderson has also outfitted his roster of celebrity clients, who sit front row at his shows, in a similar way. A$AP Rocky wore his festive red and green tie asymmetrically over one collar, much like the sleepily dressed runway models — while British actors Josh O’Connor and Jonathan Bailey played it straight and stuck with convention. Bailey somewhat resembled a corporate tech bro, styling his tie with a shirt and blue Dior-logoed half-zip sweater.

Men’s fashion preferences had been shifting away from neckties for several decades, driven by more casual dress codes in the workplace and a growing preference for comfort, even before the pandemic. In 2019, Hermès, best known for its silk accessories and leather handbags, reported slow growth in its silk and textiles unit for the previous year, with CEO Axel Dumas blaming the “structural decline” of neckties.

In 2021, journalist Jonah Weiner wrote in his menswear newsletter “Blackbird Spyplane” that his personal disdain for neckties came from the fact that, to him, they represented a “cursed Obama-era workplace cliche” and the “repressive gaze” of corporate overlords.

When the workforce returned to their desks a year later, the tie didn’t always come with it: A photo of world leaders at the 2022 G7 summit circulated around the internet after people noticed that not one government representative — from former US President Joe Biden to President of France Emmanuel Macron — was wearing one. Gildo Zegna, chairman and chief executive of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, shared a similar view when he spoke to the Business of Fashion that same year: “For the tie, I don’t see a good future.”

Yet, soon after, the tide changed. By 2023, GQ reported that neckties had become the hottest product at Hermès, as the brand developed new stylish options — some had more contemporary narrow widths; others were made from experimental fabrics like knit and even leather.

Today, as changing social roles and gender equality ignites conversations on what it means to be a man today, the adoption of the casual tie could be one response. Some critics see them as the modern-day codpiece (in the 16th century, the fabric pouch evolved from a practical modesty garment into a prominent fashion statement and symbol of masculinity). The phallic-shaped necktie, pointing like an arrow, directs attention from the wearer’s throat to groin as a masculine marker — which is why the recent spike in female wearers, including A-listers Zendaya, Mikey Madison, Iris Law, Madonna, Sabrina Carpenter, Hailey Bieber, Ayo Edibiri and Brooke Shields, is so powerful.

Now, there are almost no rules on when to wear a tie. They can be worn with jeans, while running errands, under a sweatshirt or, if you are feeling old-school, to the office. The freedom to choose a tie, rather than feel mandated to wear one, makes the decision more creative. The Jonas brothers, who attended a red carpet premiere for their latest film just hours after their TV appearance Monday, each wore a suit. Ultimately they decided to skip the tie.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.