It begins, as most things do now, with a quiet repetition online. A tie, loosely knotted over a tank top in a video. Another, tossed over an oversized shirt. Then again – somewhere else styled differently, stripped of all expectations.
It's hard to think of a necktie without imagining it in a boardroom meeting, tied neatly against a crisp shirt, part of a familiar uniform. But now it's everywhere, detached from its stiff formality. It looks fashionable, even conversational, reworked, and worn with ease. What remains is a piece that no longer holds the same function, yet hasn’t disappeared completely. Instead, it has been reintroduced as something far more experimental.
The tie has quietly existed beyond corporate confines. Women have worn it for decades – from German actress Marlene Dietrich and Diane Keaton to more recent iterations seen on Ananya Panday, Hailey Bieber, and Jacob Elordi. Today, that same spirit carries onto the runway. The tie hasn’t returned as a symbol of discipline; instead, it reemerges undone, tucked away, or worn like an afterthought.
Designers seem less interested in preserving the fixed meaning and spend much of their creativity unravelling it – treating the tie as a fluid accessory. At the Kiko Kostadinov SS26, it was reimagined as an integration, absorbed into the design, a fun element slightly breaking control. Meanwhile, at Coach, the tie sat awkwardly on top, deliberately misplaced, reading more like a prop than a focal point. At Kidsuper, it was stripped of all seriousness, rendered almost as a drawn-on motif; it read less like clothing and more like a playful exaggeration. Elsewhere at Junya Watanabe, ties took on multi-layered forms, where disorder was the intention. At Valentino, the tie returned neatly but instead of asserting itself, it was tucked in, turning into a quiet detail.
Not long ago, the tie knew where it belonged – offices, routines – and had a certain idea of how to get dressed for work. That boundary has begun to blur. Office dressing has quietly changed; the tie has lost its place as a daily requirement – the association is less fixed, more relaxed silhouettes and open collars have taken its place among professionals. At the same time, the tie has moved beyond menswear, the blurring of gendered dressing and the growing embrace of androgyny in fashion have expanded its possibilities, softening and at times subverting its original association. Within this shift, micro trends emerging from larger trends like the “office siren” allow the tie to exist independently, shaped by how it's styled rather than what it once represented.
The tie no longer sits in predictable ways; it can be worn slightly undone, loosening the structure and introducing ease. You can also style the tie tonally, blending into the shirt rather than standing apart. Or it can be the focal point: bold, contrasting, patterned, injecting energy and personality into an otherwise composed look. At its most experimental, the tie can be approached conceptually, distorted, reshaped or reimagined in unfamiliar shapes, forms, or materials. It can also take on a more decorative role, within brooches, pins, or unexpected embellishments.
