I will be the first to admit that when I started seeing suits combined with sneakers I was a little slow to embrace the concept. Maybe the side of me that’s occasionally a bit over zealous when it comes to respecting the traditions of classic menswear raised alarms. But as we age, and hopefully become more in tune with how we express ourselves through clothing, I think we loosen up a bit and yearn for new ways to explore and individualize our style. Likewise, the last few years I’ve brushed aside some of those old stuffy pretenses and become a bit more easy going. 

​When you think about the neck tie, it's a rather peculiar item of clothing. Apart from adorning a shirt and tie, it doesn't really have any practical purpose. The origin of the neck tie apparently dates way back to the French who caught on to the small-knotted neckerchiefs that were worn by soldiers of the Croatian military during the Thirty Years War of the 1600s. This was the birth of the Cravat, as it was known, which was later made fashionable amongst French nobility by King Louis XIV. The industrial revolution eventually ignited the desire for a less complicated, low maintenance cravat to specify one’s status in society; right from the very beginning, the tie possessed an inherent association with position and formality.