Patrick McHenry is part of a long, bipartisan history of bow ties in politics
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Back in May, when Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.) was helping then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy negotiate a deal with the White House over the debt limit, McHenry described himself self-deprecatingly to the publication the Hill as "a little guy with a bow tie walking around doing my thing."
Ever since McCarthy's historic removal from his leadership role on Tuesday, McHenry's "thing" now includes presiding over House proceedings as the speaker pro tempore and tapping (read: nearly annihilating) the ceremonial gavel.
The bow ties, though, remain a constant.
On Tuesday, he accessorized his charcoal suit with a shiny, patterned, rose-colored bow tie. The next day, he engaged in a high-risk sartorial maneuver that swerved dangerously close to accidental-tuxedo territory: a navy suit with a black bow tie. The 10-term Congressman has also recently paired a dark-gray suit with variations in green and a blue-black stripe pattern accented with orange and gold. When Jimmy Fallon impersonated McHenry on his show Wednesday night, he did so in a gray suit, white dress shirt and a lavender bow tie with a pattern reminiscent of a multitude of tiny bubbles.
Clearly, for McHenry, the bow tie has become part of a signature look, a shrewd way to be just a little more recognizable in an environment where guys who look like him are, let's be honest, abundant. (He declined to comment, citing his current responsibilities.) But the particular tie style, especially when divorced from the tuxedo, has a long history in American politics. It has at times become the subject of some mild sartorial infighting - and an emblem of nostalgia, invoked across the political spectrum.
A great number of historical figures have made the bow tie a part of their personas. Of course, many of them did so back in the 19th and early-to-mid-20th centuries, when dress codes across Western civilization were more formal and bow ties were a more common staple of the male wardrobe. President Abraham Lincoln is often seen in photographs wearing a bow tie, as were both President Roosevelts and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Later on, of course, as the late 20th century's standardization of an office-work uniform popularized the necktie, the bow tie became a rarer sight. Its inclusion alongside a business suit has therefore come to be a way to add a touch of the old-fashioned to the whole ensemble, and a number of politicians made a signature of them throughout the latter part of the 20th century - including Albert Thomas of Texas, Otis G. Pike of New York and Charlie Vanik of Ohio.
That said, by the 1980s, the bow tie had developed a dubious reputation in some circles - perhaps thanks to John T. Molloy's 1975 book "Dress for Success." In the book, which would go on to popularize the concept of "power dressing," Molloy wrote that he found bow ties worn with a business suit made the wearer look "sneaky."
In 1986, Henry Allen rebutted Molloy in The Washington Post, arguing that the very act of wearing a bow tie - and specifically having tied it oneself - made a man look smart. And by 2001, Wall Street Journal columnist Joseph Epstein defended the accessory's "subtle wit" and extolled the virtue of its nonconformity. But soon after that, Rob Walker shot back via a Slate column that the style's obvious, overwrought eccentricity had begun to align it with certain obnoxious aspects of conservative politics.
"It is a stunt accessory, with the sole function of drawing attention to the supposedly maverick and 'against the flow' worldview of its wearer," Walker wrote. "Its true analogue is the kid with the green mohawk and safety-pinned shirt complaining that everyone is staring at him all the time. The bow tie, in short, is the nose ring of the conservative."
In truth, over the past 30 years, the bow-tie tradition in American government has largely been kept alive by Democrats. Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Rep. Donald Payne Jr. have been wearing them in the House for years. In the Senate, Paul Simon of Illinois and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York wore them in the 1990s and 2000s, and Mo Cowan of Massachusetts made his short 2013 tenure in Congress memorable with boldly colorful renditions.
Still, McHenry's signature look taps into a connection between conservative politics and the bow tie that very much exists in the popular imagination. Tucker Carlson's affinity for the ties in the early part of his career followed him around long after he'd abandoned his habit of wearing them, and it probably even helped popularize them in subsets that consider Carlson cool. (In 2014, The Atlantic published a story titled "The Many Glorious Bow Ties of CPAC.")
And, undeniably, there's a whiff of good-old-days nostalgia to the bow tie, as there often is in conservative politics. A backward-looking wistfulness that invokes a supposed, long-ago time when America was great and men were men - and celebrated it by tying dainty bows around their necks.
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