List of bow tie wearers

This is a list of notable bow tie wearers, real and fictional; notable people for whom the wearing of a bow tie (when not in formal dress) is also a notable characteristic.
Bow tie wearing can be a notable characteristic for an individual. Men's clothier Jack Freedman told The New York Times that wearing a bow tie "is a statement maker" that identifies a person as an individual because "it's not generally in fashion". Numerous writers and bow tie sellers have observed that the popularity of this type of neckwear can rise and fall with the fortunes of the well-known people who wear them.
Until the 20th century, the bow tie was the general rule for neckties. Starting in early 20th century, the bow tie started to become more rare.
In 1996, The Wall Street Journal quoted statistics from the Neckwear Association of America showing that bow ties represent three percent of the 100 million ties sold each year in the United States, most of them part of formal wear, such as for white tie and black tie.
Those who write about bow ties often mention famous people who wear or have worn them. These writers often make the point that the image conveyed to others by a bow tie can be affected by associations with celebrities and famous people in the past.
A common fashion accessory in the 19th century, the bow tie had positive associations by mid-20th century, bolstered by real-world personalities, including President Franklin Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill, as well as "devil-may-care" characters portrayed in films by actors, including Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra. By the 1970s, however, the bow tie became associated with nerds and geeks, such as the slapstick characters played by Jerry Lewis, and Mayberry's fictional deputy sheriff, Barney Fife. This perception was reinforced by the bow tie's association with Pee-wee Herman and U.S. Senator Paul Simon.
The perceptions associated with bow ties started to take another turn in the 1980s, when Success Magazine's founder, W. Clement Stone, spoke out in support of the neck wear after the publication by fashion author John Molloy which observed, "Wear a bow tie and nobody will take you seriously." Stone associated bow-tie wearing with virility, aggressiveness, and salesmanship. In further defense of the bow tie, its use by figures such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Saul Bellow has been cited.
When a celebrity is noticed wearing a bow tie, it can affect bow tie sales; sales see an improvement when the accessory is associated with younger celebrities such as Tucker Carlson. When Raj Bhakta wore one during his stint on The Apprentice, haberdashers reported customers asking for a bow tie which looked like his. Similarly, after Matt Smith made his debut as the bow tie-wearing Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who, Topman reported a significant increase in demand for bow ties (from 3% of all tie sales to 14%).
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. wrote about his decision as a college student to start wearing bow ties in his memoir A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917–1950. Schlesinger remarked that he made his decision in part because a number of famous men he admired had a penchant for the neck wear. In addition, he noted that they prevent dinner mishaps, saying, "It is impossible, or at least it requires extreme agility, to spill anything on a bow tie."
Bow tie sellers often cite famous people who have worn the neckwear as a way of encouraging more customers. Jack Cutone, co-founder of Boston Bow Tie, noted that there is ample evidence to support the uniqueness and stature of those who wear bow ties, including Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Beau Ties Ltd., an online bow tie seller, has featured a "C. Everett Koop bow tie," complete with an endorsement by Koop, who was Surgeon General of the United States during the Reagan administration. Carrot & Gibbs, another bow tie seller, lists several famous wearers on its bow tie web page.
Bow ties were conventional attire in the nineteenth century. Portraits of U.S. presidents from Van Buren through McKinley commonly show them in bow ties. Wearing of a bow tie was seldom commented upon and did not form part of the public perception of figures such as American inventor Thomas Edison .
The regular wearing of bow ties by a politician is often the subject of comment — from friends, foes and journalists:
Bow ties are a consistent element in the depiction of some fictional characters.
Film and television characters portrayed by human actors as consistently wearing bow ties have included:
Bow ties are a consistent part of the depiction of many characters created by artists for entertainment media including comics, cartoons, and anime.
Among these are many Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters:
Other artist-created characters consistently or frequently depicted in bow ties include: