Someone left rude comments on one of my articles saying only ties under two and a half inches wide aren’t “trying too hard,” and then separately my uncle insisted my tie was “a shoelace” at a wedding before telling me actual men’s ties are three and a half inches wide because otherwise it’s “not a tie.” Guess what both of those people have in common? They wear ties of the opposite width to the one they insist is wrong, and they both said it with such conviction you’d think they tried the other width and hated it. They’re both wrong, but they’re both wrong in the same way: they chose a number and made that their position instead of treating it as something that needs to work with the rest of their outfit.
I wear around three inches at the blade tip generally, give or take depending on the jacket I’m wearing, but here’s why that isn’t me undercutting them and picking some happy middle ground, it’s actually the result. Tie width isn’t meant to be chosen on its own. Proportion is everything when you’re picking how wide your tie should be.
The tie width vs lapel width debate isn’t about the tie
Here’s the secret no-one mentions when you buy your first “nice” tie aged seventeen for your interview: That “32ndom” on the label is meaningless by itself. Bought a 3.25 inch tie recently?
Me too.
Got it because I was interviewing so needed something to match a suit but found most places only gave that option if you went SUPER slim with the jacket too so I paired it with this jacket I had that has these ridiculous tiny notch lapels and let me tell you, that tie was trying to swallow that jacket. It’s not like they just didn’t match well, they clashed; the sort of clash where your eye can’t decide which shape to trust so it quickly gives up and says “everything just looks wrong” to your brain without explaining why. That right there? That’s bad proportion.
Ties losing the fight against lapels is the biggest factor that dictates your tie width, more than “proper” widths or what’s fashionable that year. The rule of thumb that I’ve stuck to since realising this (and I didn’t just make this up, plenty of old guys say this) is your tie shouldn’t be wider than your lapel is. Slim, clipped lapel? Skinny tie. Big, sprawling lapel? Tie up to that magic 3/3.5 inch width nobody can agree on without wanting to murder your neck in a fight over who looks sharper. Okay, it’s not an exact science and I’m not suggesting you whip out your ruler every time you wear a new jacket to a wedding, but that’s how off a tie can look if you ignore it.
What has changed, properly answering the “how wide are ties these days?” question, is actually lapel width. It’s narrowed across the industry in the last decade which has, quietly, reduced tie width without anyone saying we were allowed to. Lots of modern tailoring now falls between 2.75 and 3.25 inches at the blade just because that’s what looks right on the slimmer jackets everyone owns whether they specifically bought a slim fit or their local shop didn’t stock anything else. So when people ask me how wide ties are these days, the truth isn’t a number, it’s “they’re nowhere near as wide as your dad’s were, because your jacket isn’t as wide as his was.
The second thing that influences tie width; it’s your frame, not your chest
Second point and I feel like this one actually gets skipped over because it’s less easy to say loud than “match your lapel.” Your actual build matters hugely and ties sizes forgive you not taking it into account more than most guides will admit. And I don’t mean like in that horribly vague “dress for your body shape” way that sounds like Christian Lacroix handed in his DMs in 2011. I mean your build honestly changes what tie widths look good on you.
I’m skinny, and a 3.5 inch tie on me looks borrowed. It doesn’t look “classic,” it looks like I stole it from my dad and he’s finally realized. My friend Ferris is broad shouldered and barrel chested because he honestly does lift for fun. That same tie looks completely different on him, it doesn’t scream “NINE BILLION DOLLARS” at you, it just fits like it was made for him. Same tie. Same width. Completely different effect, and we’re both right and neither of us are doing it wrong.
The problem is, no hard and fast rule can tell you where that line is because it’s about far more than just current fashion or what neck Andy stumbled across on Menswear Twitter this month. It’s about if that tie actually suits YOU wearing it. Skinny guys with a small chest should stay away from wider ties unless they want the tie to be the dominant statement of their outfit and not in a good way.
Think of it like wearing a bib.
Big dudes should avoid jumping on the last skinny tie trend because it just makes your tie look like it shrunk in the dryer.
The knot you use matters for this as well, although I’ll keep this brief as it’s less of the equation. Skinny ties generally need skinny knots to not look silly, your knot shouldn’t look bigger than your tie is wide. Wide ties can—and should—have a nicer, wider knot because it looks cramped with a thin one. Again, it doesn’t sound like much but tiny details like your knot are what’s going to make your outfit look put together or like you threw it together while your mum wasn’t looking.
If you really want a number to end on I’ll give it to you: Three inches. Plus or minus a quarter inch depending on your lapel and your frame. Stop treating either side like the moral right and the other side are idiots, because honestly? The guy saying everyone should wear 2.5 inch ties and the guy who says any man who wears under a 3.5 is chicken are both just describing their own wardrobe and trying to take it one step beyond that. Measure your lapels, know your frame and let your tie tie become the middle point that matches both of them, not the first thing you pick and force the rest of your wardrobe to match.
