If you don’t wear ties, you probably know someone who does. Challenge yourself and/or them to do what I’m doing here by sporting an interesting, different kind of knot and liven up the drudgery of boring ties!

Neckties… such an irony. So formal, yet so banal. You wear it to show respect and be respectful of an event and/or group of people. Yet, you just grab one that, for the most part, looks like one anyone else grabbed off the same shelf. Lots of solids, stripes, mostly muted colour palette. However, if you go outside of this most generic of dress codes, you might be flagged for being disrespectful, attention attracting, and so on.

So what’s a man (or woman) to do with his ties so as knot to look so boring? (pun intended)

Well, it so happens, there are many knots out there! And by many, I don’t mean the same banal set of rules applied to ties as to knots, like Windsor and half-Windsors. The Windsors are a formality, and so are those knots. You want to show you took some time and care to dress up for the event with your tie, try a different knot. I mean a really different knot!

So far, I’ve tried two: the Eldredge Knot and the Trinity Knot. Pics are below, with instructional videos at bottom.

The Trinity knot is definitely more noticeable as something other than a regular tie knot. It’s also easier, and nicer, in my opinion, in that it’s big and has multiple aspects of symmetry (mirror planes, rotation centres). If you’re into the details, though, and want to show off some more tie knotting skills, the Eldredge knot has the edge there. It also looks much more like a regular tie knot so if you’re afraid of punking a really uptight, conservative and formal group, you can probably get by without too many people noticing you’ve got anything special. Probably the women would be the only ones who notice, despite them not usually putting on a tie. Guys just generally don’t notice these things, I can tell you from experience wearing these ties.

But have a look at the instructional videos below for the Eldredge and Trinity knots and see if either suits you. If not, see if this  Alex Krasny guy’s few other knot videos, which are even more liberal in structure, are to your liking… and liven up your tie wearing for the sake of the world!