Alexander Stubb’s tie was crooked during the New Year’s speech

Republic president Alexander Stubb held a traditional on the first day of the year New Year’s speech. In addition to the content of the speech, some Finns’ attention has been drawn to Stubb’s tie.

Why was it crooked? Shouldn’t the president’s tie be straight on such an occasion?

These questions were pondered by numerous commentators on the Threads discussion platform, for example, in several long message threads, and Iltalehti even wrote about the topic two things on New Year’s Day.

The president’s tie style managed to attract so much attention that on Friday the Russian state news agency also Ria Novosti raised Stubb’s tie to the tip of the iceberg in his story, which claims that “Stubb embarrassed himself by making a bold statement about Russia”.

Ria Novosti also refers Ilta-Sanom to the 2024 story by stating that Stubb has had “similar problems” before.

In the spring of 2024, the office of the President of the Republic fixed Stubb’s crooked tie even in the picture published on their website, but the manipulated picture was quickly removed.

Undeniably Stubb’s tie seems to have been clearly askew during the New Year’s speech.

But the matter is not so clear-cut.

The knot pattern of Stubb’s tie is called four-in-hand, which differs from another typical knot pattern, the Windsor knot, says the fashion expert Jaakko Selin. Selin has discussed ties in his book published in 1997 Chinese feet and other stories about our body decorations.

The four-in-hand knot pattern is always asymmetrical, says Selin.

“It can be a little crooked. The essential thing is that the material of the tie is then high-quality silk, in which case it looks good,” says Selin.

When Selin has looked at pictures of Stubb’s tie in the New Year’s speech, he too pays attention to the crookedness of the tie.

“It’s pretty much skewed. It’s clearly tied in a relaxed way. If you want, even a tie tied with a four-in-hand knot can be adjusted and made straighter with the right technique. But as a fashion history connoisseur, I’ll give you a full absolution for this,” he says and laughs.

According to Selin, there are different tricks that can be used to make a tie tied with a four-in-hand knot straighter.

“If I’m wearing a waistcoat, I’ve made the tie outrageously short, because the end of the tie can be hidden under the vest anyway. In this case, you can use a thicker part of the tie knot, which makes it more secure.”

Four-in-hand-solmua also called the English knot because it is especially popular in Britain.

“In Stubb’s ties, I’ve followed where he got or got his own ties from. The significant difference between American and British ties is that their stripes run in different directions,” says Selin.

In Stubb’s New Year’s tie, Selin pays even more attention to another point.

“I represent the school of thought that a person’s clothing is a whole. A sentence is what you put on, and ties, jewelry and other accessories act as punctuation marks. In this case, the choice of tie was not meant to say anything. The tie can have, for example, a woven pattern or a certain color choice, which can act as a means of effectiveness. There is no such thing here.”

In the New Year’s speech, Stubb had a light tie around his neck.

“It’s clearly deliberately neutral, the president has probably deliberately omitted to use an effective power tool. Unfortunately, that tie reminds me a bit of a butler or an orchestra leader,” says Selin.