The Royal Wedding is tomorrow and myself and a few other British expats living here in the Austrian Alps are going to get together to celebrate. We are going to hold a British Tea Party and the dress code is - Wedding fashion, so my husband needs to wear a tie.

Whenever my husband wears a tie, he spends at least an hour deciding which one to wear and then another hour getting the knot right!

To my knowledge there are four main different types of knots.
The Four in hand knot, in my opinion is the simplest.  A slightly asymmetric and narrow knot, this is commonly used among school boys due to its simplicity.  While this knot is appropriate for most occasions, it is not suitable for all.

The Windsor knot is my particular favourite, especially for formal occasions.  Also know as a Full Windsor to distinguish it from the half-Windsor, this method is used to produce a wide symmetrical triangular knot.

This knot is named after Edward VII who had his ties made from thicker cloth in order to produce his preference of wider knots. Ties used for a Windsor knot should be about 40 cm longer than a conventional tie, as a large proportion of the material is used to create the knot.

The Pratt knot also known as the Shelby knot and the Pratt-Shelby was invented by a US Chamber of Commerce employee - Jerry Pratt. This method produces a symmetrical tie knot of medium thickness, and as it uses less length than the Windsor knot, it is suited
to shorter ties.

The fourth method is The Half Windsor.  Also known as the Single Windsor, this method of tying a necktie creates a neat, triangular knot that is larger than the four-in-hand knot and Pratt knot but smaller than the Windsor knot. It works well with light and medium weight fabrics.

My husband has a preference for Country inspired Silk Ties and so the Windsor and Half-Windsor knots work well.  I might just have a go at tying one myself so we can get to the party on time!


Post By Marc