How to Tie a Bow Tie

Hi, I am Ethan Drath of Sherman Pickey, were here to tie a tie today. This is how you tie a bow tie.

Start by taking the tie, most bow ties are going to have adjustments for your neck size. Try to find on the bow Tie, in the insert here, your neck size. I generally go with about a half-an-inch bigger than my actual neck size, it gives you a little bit more room to work. So, go ahead and adjust it, follow the numbers there, get it in line with the size that youre shooting for. Take that bow tie, and you want to put that over your neck. Be sure to be wearing a collar dress shirt. Go ahead and button that on up, all the way, especially the top button, loosen up your collar, you might in fact want to flip it up all the way.

Take that tie then and go ahead and get into position. Youre going to want to take the right hand side of this tie, make that a little bit longer by at least double then the side on your left. Take that longer side, go ahead and cross it over the shorter side, be mindful of keeping it as high to your neck as possible while you do this. Youre going to want to now take that longer side, which is in your left hand side, feed it through the loop that you have created. Put it all the way through, allow it to hang straight down, and again, be mindful of keeping your knot pretty tight. So, go ahead and use this as an opportunity to shimmy it up just a little bit, and get it in line with your top button. Alright, this is where it gets tricky. Take that shorter side now, begin to actually form the bow.

Go ahead then, use your thumb and your index finger to bring the ends together. Hold them out like so. Youre going to want to keep them together like that. At this point, this is the tricky part, take that long side thats hanging, feed that on through the knot you have created back here, like so. Once you get that on through, youre going to start to see the tie, and you have got the rough beginning of a bow tie. Now, adjustment is sort of the key at this point. What youre going to want to do to get this thing fully adjusted is take the outside on your left and at the same time the inside on your right to start your adjustment, and you will do the opposite of that; taking the outside on your right, with the inside to your left. Keep pulling on those opposite ends for as long as it takes. It can take a little while. Before you know it, your bow tie will start to take form. It is just a series of adjustments with those. Once you feel that you have got it in place, go ahead and make sure that you have the material from the tie nice and high so that it lines up with the seam of your collar. You can start to bring your collar on down. Once you have that done, you can do a final adjustment or two. That is how you tie a bow tie.