Apr 3, 2007

the ugliest tie in the world


It's a bold claim, but I'm the sort of tie aficionado with the bad taste and the breadth of neckwear experience to make it.

For those unfamiliar, the whole collection is here. Warning: excessive polyester.

3 comments:

Ariel said...

Do you consider there to be a difference between ugly and tacky?

Jim Anderson said...

That's an interesting and quite philosophical question.

It's a fine line, and comes down to bravado. I see tackiness as an ugly subset of kitsch: it's always done with lofty intentions, but fails miserably.

Some things are ugly without being tacky--say, the Ugly Building in downtown Olympia. It's an offense against the landscape, but lacks the panache of the truly tacky.

Does that make sense?

Ariel said...

I think so.

I love that the "Ugly Building in downtown Olympia" is capitalized therefore making "Ugly Building" it's official name.