How To Tie A Tie Using A Full Windsor Knot

In this 'How To' demonstration you can use the written instructions or follow along with the video - both will teach you how to tie your tie using a full Windsor knot!

Before we start you should note your tie has a skinny end and a fat end.

Your first decision is going to be which side of your body you place the ends.

It doesn't matter which side your tie goes on, it won't affect the tie tying process.

Not only does your tie have two ends, it has two different sides: the face side, which is smooth and the seam side which is on the back.

We're going to start with the seam side down so take your tie and with the seam side down, place it around your neck flat against your body, again with the seam side down.

Here's where we adjust for length. You pull on the fat end so that the skinny end is about at your rib cage. Now choosing length; this is a very difficult step, it's a very important step, but in this part of the process we're just trying to tie the tie properly, so we're going to skip it. We will come back to it later.

Now we're going to take the fat end and cross it over the skinny end.

Move the skinny end over, take the fat end cross it over the skinny end, making an "X".

Keep one hand holding the bottom of the "X".

To simplify the process I'm going to have one hand do all the work while the other hand just holds the center of the "X".

The center of the "X" becomes the knot so I'm going to call the hand that holds the "X", the "knot hand". Choose which hand you want to be the "knot hand" and take hold of the center of the "X".

Make sure you have a good grip and don't let go but feel free to adjust later if you need to.

Now the space between the center of the "X" and your neck is what i call the tie hole.

There's four places we can put the tie:

We can make the tie come out of the hole
We can make the tie go into the hole
We can make the tie go behind the hole
We can make the tie go across the hole

The first step we're going to do is take the tie and make it go out of the hole.

So take the tie and make it go out of the hole. I do that by placing my hand in the front of the tie and then just push it straight up through the hole with it half way through you can use your knot hand to hold the bottom of the tie as you move your working hand around. Pull the rest of the tie through flipping it over and let it fall in front of you.

Now we're going to take the tie and make it go behind the hole so go ahead and grab the tie pull it over to the side and just push it straight through behind the hole.

Next we're going to place it on your shoulder so you can see that the seam here is now facing out also take note that this part here is kind of low.

Now we're going to take the tie and make it go in to the hole.

I'm going to grab under flip it around and push it through the hole, as I'm halfway through I'm going to grab it with my pinky, just go ahead and pull the rest of it through again, now flipping it so the seam side is showing.

Take a good look at the knot here feel free to give a small tug on the tie at the end of every step; you don't want it too tight, but then again not too loose.

We're now going to take the tie and go across the hole so take the tie, pull it over the side and then make it go across the hole.

Again, place the tie on your shoulder just so you can see that the face is now showing.

The next step is to take the tie and make it go out of the hole again as we do that we're going to kind of flip it, just push your fingers around and through again, As you make the tie go out of the hole you're going to flip it over so again
the face is showing. In future it's at this point you may want to switch hands.

To finish you're going to take the fat end of the tie and put it behind the across step it's kind of hard to explain where that is, so take the fat end and make it go right where your finger is, again i'm using one hand here but at this point it can be easier to just grab the fat end with that one finger either way you're going to pull the fat end through and keep pulling until the knot is tight as you're pulling the knot tight.

Make sure not to lose the skinny end!

You can squeeze the bottom to help form the proper shape; pulling the two tops apart will also help.

To tighten the tie around the neck grab the skinny end with one hand and the bottom of the knot with the other hand and now you do a "pull and slide" motion pull in the skinny end slide the knot, pull, slide, tidy up a bit, make sure everything looks nice.

Now you can flip your collar down

It's at this point you should also do up the top button of your shirt, give your neck tie one more tighten and you're all done!

Now we just need to get the proper length and maybe a little faster - but that's just practice.

Now you know how to tie a Windsor knot in your tie, just like a pro!