Success Quote by Rick Kaplan

A bow tie is tiny, fussy, and stubbornly impractical, which is exactly why Kaplan frames it as defiance. In a business culture that sells “efficiency” as a moral virtue - slim suits, minimal logos, neutral palettes, the uniform of frictionless competence - the bow tie reads like a refusal to disappear into the template. It’s a deliberate speed bump. It makes people look twice, then decide what category you belong to.

Kaplan’s phrasing is doing two things at once. “A statement” is the safe corporate language of branding: you curate a signal, you manage perception. “Almost an act of defiance” edges into something riskier and more emotional. It implies the wearer understands the social penalty: being clocked as eccentric, try-hard, professor-ish, or attention-seeking. The word “almost” is the tell. It’s rebellion with plausible deniability. You can claim taste, tradition, or formalwear protocol while still enjoying the thrill of breaking the office’s unwritten rules.

The subtext is that modern professionalism is more policed than we admit. Not by formal dress codes, but by the quiet pressure to look “serious” in the narrow way the market currently defines seriousness. A bow tie challenges that definition without needing a speech. It’s conformity’s cousin - still a tie, still “appropriate” - but it tilts the whole silhouette toward personality. For a businessman, that’s also strategy: differentiation packaged as decorum, individuality expressed in a way that can’t quite be written up.