A WORKMATE recently devised a little tea break conundrum which neatly illustrated the way that the corporate attitude has changed towards ties. Was he wearing one because he had a job interview? No. Was it because he had a court appearance? Guess again.

And the reason that he should suddenly see fit to wear a tie in an office where around 90 per cent of the male staff no longer bother? Because it was hiding an enormous spaghetti bolognaise stain on his shirt.

Yet, interestingly, while the dress-down ethos of the dot.com era all but did for the formality of a piece of cloth around most men's necks, the reality, according to those in the know, is that sales have actually been increasing since the end of the 1990s.

New research

The latest market research from Mintel reveals that the tie market has made an impressive comeback since sales dropped from £158m in 1999 to just £154m in 2004. The market is this year expected to be worth £162m, with a further seven per cent increase expected between now and 2011.

All of this is good news for Tie Rack, the British-owned retailer which sells men's accessories across the world. Marketing director Sara Carter concurs with the Mintel assessment of the market and says that while sales reached a plateau at the end of the 1990s, the company has enjoyed increases every year since. So, why is that we now see so few ties in the office?

"Men are buying ties in quite a different way," Sara says. "We still enjoy the same level of corporate business in big city centres, but the increases are now largely being driven by a boom in fashionable ties worn as part of an outfit away from the office."

Smart and fashionable

"One such look is the one championed by rich footballers and pop stars which sees people wearing what we describe as a skinny tie. We are also selling lots of narrow ties and ties, which produce a chunky knot when they are tied. We have also seen a big increase in tone-on-tone ties for people who might be going straight from work to a work-related social occasion.

"Girls are also wearing ties, too. They tend to be aged between around 18 and 25, and wear a white shirt with a skinny tie hanging loosely around their necks. It's almost an extension of the fashion for scarves." However, Carter says the time is nigh for ties to make a return to more formal environments.

"It is no longer seen as stuffy and establishment to wear a tie to work. People now wear a tie to the office because they want people to wonder what they're up to. They want to stand out from the crowd and make a statement." I can live with that just so long as that statement isn't "I'm a messy eater."