Reading Ray Smith’s article about the demise of the Men’s Dress Furnishings Association in the Wall Street Journal this morning, I was appalled at the following comments from the executives of two tie producing menswear companies:

“We make ties for other people so we don't have to wear them,” says [Vineyard Vines] co-CEO Ian Murray, 33, who on a recent afternoon in his Stamford, Conn., office was wearing shorts, flip-flops and a polo shirt.

And here’s JA Apparel’s Marty Staff on attending a MDFA meeting tie-less:

”It was deliberate,” explains Mr. Staff, who says he wanted to make a statement to his colleagues. “Historically, the guy wearing the navy suit, the white shirt and the burgundy tie would be the CEO. Now he's the accountant.”

It’s no wonder the MDFA is done for, much less the tie business itself.

Staff goes on to say that “Power is being able to dress the way you want,” and that he doesn’t like when ties become obligatory. I couldn’t agree more; I wear a tie every day, partly because I don’t have to.

It seems that there are two groups of ties wearers out there today: younger men like me who wear them for fashion and out of subtle rebellion against the “Casual Fridays” scourge that arose when we came of age, and the Wall Street types who still see ties as a part of the uniform.

Ask most luxury men’s specialty stores, as I did for an article in our upcoming June issue, and most are fairly optimistic about both the present and future of ties. “It’s still an enormous, multi-million dollar business for us,” said Dan Farrington of Mitchells. “It’s a substantial classification.”

The problem with the neckwear business is that the space between the young fashion consumer and the wealthy professional consumer is moribund. “Ties are trending from a wardrobe staple to a niche market,” Andy Stinson told me. I think he may be right.

I got some hope from Steve Cardino, the men’s fashion director at Macy’s. “If we’re going to move the needle, we need to get behind items,” he told me recently. Macy’s will be getting behind skinny ties, bow ties (in an admittedly smaller way) and vests for fall. The goal for skinny ties, Cardino told me, is to “convince every man in America that every piece of neckwear in his closet is dated,” so that men are not just buying more of the same ties, but replacing entire closets.

Lee Terrill, PVH Neckwear’s president, told our editor Karen Alberg that he thought neckwear was about an $800 million to$1 billion business. PVH now owns most of it. PVH has acquired Superba, Insignia Design Group and Mulberry. We could look at this optimistically and say that one giant company may have the will and the means to jumpstart the tie business (at least from a marketing point of view), or we could see it as a sign that the end of neckwear as we know it is nigh.

Karen Alberg got a passionate letter from Richard Arutunian, the former Neckwear Historian for the MDFA (or the Neckwear Association, as it used to be known) pleading for someone in the industry to save the group.

“I know there isn’t the number of manufacturers today as there were say from the 1930’s to the early 1960’s – maybe only about 5 percent of those numbers in America today,” Arutunian wrote. “However, with the very deep pockets of the neckwear giants in this country it should be possible to continue the Neckwear Association of America.”

PVH is arguably the only true giant left, and it probably isn’t realistic to expect them to prop up the MDFA, but they might be wise to continue the good work of the organization through marketing and public relations. What the tie business needs is some more good press. I’m not talking about my periodic fits of nostalgia on the MR blog, I’m talking about mainstream TV, movies and magazines.

“God bless Ryan Seacrest,” Cardino told me. “Every Tuesday night he’s on TV with a narrow tie, narrow lapels and a slim suit.”

That’s a start, but it’ll take more than that to get Marty Staff to start wearing a tie again.