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TIES
HISTORY
Strictly speaking, the modern tie was a Victorian invention, though it is impossible to be precise
about the evolution of the ribbon that gentlemen wear around their necks.
“Did the Greeks and Romans wear collars and ties, and if not, why not?” the clothes connoisseur
James Laver has pondered with a smile.
Nickclothes, as distinct from ties, can be traced to antiquity. The troops of the Chinese emperor who
began building the Great Wall wore a kind of neckwear, and Roman soldiers had their sudaria, a
muslin cloth to absorb perspiration on the march. This was not to be confused with the focalia, a
woolly neck-cloth that Roman orators used to protect their vocal chords in chilly weather. The
Emperor Augustus wore one of those, though only at home; it was not the kind of thing an Emperor
wished to be seen wearing in public.
Achieving general agreement on what was presentable took a further 1600 years. The details of
how it came about are in dispute. What is certain is that collars, then known as ‘bands’, were the
sole focus of interest until they culminated in the cartwheel Elizabethan ruff. Detumescence
thereupon set in with a ‘falling band’ of frilly lace, which in the reign of Charles II began to be kept in
place by something quite new called a ‘cravat’.
The word cravat may or may not derive from the French word for Croat, but Francophiles and
romantics in general hold that in Croatia, which was a remote corner of the Roman Empire, the
ancient forms of neckwear survived the millennia to be worn by Croatian mercenaries fighting with
the French in the Thirty Years War. The French officers liked the jaunty air of the soldiers’ neck-
cloths, so the story goes, and so did their king, that great fashion plate Louis XIV.
Louis appointed a master cravatier, established a light cavalry regiment called the Royal Cravates,
and equipped his forces with silk cravats. Every morning, the royal cravatier would present the king
with a basketful of cravats, decorated with ribbons of crimson, scarlet, orange and pale blue. The
king would chose one, tie the knot himself, and leave the arrangement to the cravatier.
So ends the pretty tale. Other authorities argue that Louis had little or nothing to do with it: that the
cravat had already evolved in England from satin and velvet ribbons that held together a ‘crabbat’,
or neck frill.
Whatever the truth, the style spread quickly. In 1660, the first cravat reached America, ordered from
England for £5 by the Governor of Virginia. If this sounds expensive for the time, Charles II’s
successor, James II, paid £36 and ten shillings for a cravat of Venice lace to wear at his coronation
in 1685.
The cravat could be worn in many ways – with coloured ribbons, or in a bow under the chin, or
loosely knotted. In 1692, English troops surprised the French near Steinkirk in Belgium and shortly
thereafter a style ‘a la Steinkerque’ became the rage. This involved twisting the long ends together
and using a buttonhole as anchor, which is what the French troops are imagined to have done in
their haste to get to battle.
Before all of these styles could be sorted out, the loose cravat gave way to the stock, which was a
tight neck-band of folded linen, sometimes stiffened with horsehair or whalebone. Stocks were worn
from the 1730s and they still are today in a modified version with hunt uniform.
In the ‘solitaire’, a black ribboned bow which could be worn over the stock, we have a precursor of
the formal ‘black tie’, but in the 1780s the cravat was back in favour. It consisted now of a large
square of linen which was doubled into a triangle, then folded over and over before being passed
round and sometimes round and round the neck and then knotted or tied in a bow.
The cravat was required to nestle in such a manner that the upright points of the starched shirt
collar showed just above its top edge, thereby all but encasing the lower jaw. Pristine white and
lightly starched, it became the object of more fuss than any other item in sartorial history.
The peerless Beau Brummell was prepared to invest an entire morning in quest of the perfect
swathing and the perfect knot. The story is told of a visitor calling upon the beau and finding himself
knee-deep in crumpled linen. “Sir,” said the valet, “these are our failures.”
Lesser interpreters could get themselves into dire straits. Dickens writes of a character throttling
himself to the point where ‘I almost believe I saw creases come into the whites of his eyes.’
It was all too much to sustain, if not to bear. By the 1830s, the blinding billows of white starch were a
memory, to be persevered only in the starched white fronts of evening dress. Loosely-knotted
scarfs were affected for a time and these took many forms; one style, dubbed the ‘Byron’, was
narrow enough to pass for a string tie.
Around mid-century we at last come upon the term ‘necktie’. The cravat was by now being wound
around the neck once and tied in front with a very large and often loud-coloured bow (from whence,
the ‘bow tie’) or else it was tightly knotted at the throat to leave long ends dangling down the shirt-
front (from whence the standard modern tie) , or it was folded across the chest and fixed with a pin
in a style which would become the ascot. That dubious item, the ‘made-up’ bow tie, also made its
début in the 1860s.
It so chanced that the knot-and-dangle version provided an ideal focal point for a new kind of
‘lounging’ jacket with V-opening at the chest, and together they proceeded to conquer the entire
world, as suit and tie. The phenomenon happened so swiftly that the conquest was all but complete
by 1900.
Major design advances occurred in the 1920s, when an American tie manufacturer named Jesse
Langsdorf pioneered a construction method which enabled the tie to snap back into shape after
knotting. This featured the use of loose stitching and a bias-cut wool interlining, where previously
flannel bad been used. By the 1930s, quality ties were being expertly cut, always on the cross grain
of the fabric, to achieve maximum resilience.
HISTORY
Strictly speaking, the modern tie was a Victorian invention, though it is impossible to be precise
about the evolution of the ribbon that gentlemen wear around their necks.
“Did the Greeks and Romans wear collars and ties, and if not, why not?” the clothes connoisseur
James Laver has pondered with a smile.
Nickclothes, as distinct from ties, can be traced to antiquity. The troops of the Chinese emperor who
began building the Great Wall wore a kind of neckwear, and Roman soldiers had their sudaria, a
muslin cloth to absorb perspiration on the march. This was not to be confused with the focalia, a
woolly neck-cloth that Roman orators used to protect their vocal chords in chilly weather. The
Emperor Augustus wore one of those, though only at home; it was not the kind of thing an Emperor
wished to be seen wearing in public.
Achieving general agreement on what was presentable took a further 1600 years. The details of
how it came about are in dispute. What is certain is that collars, then known as ‘bands’, were the
sole focus of interest until they culminated in the cartwheel Elizabethan ruff. Detumescence
thereupon set in with a ‘falling band’ of frilly lace, which in the reign of Charles II began to be kept in
place by something quite new called a ‘cravat’.
The word cravat may or may not derive from the French word for Croat, but Francophiles and
romantics in general hold that in Croatia, which was a remote corner of the Roman Empire, the
ancient forms of neckwear survived the millennia to be worn by Croatian mercenaries fighting with
the French in the Thirty Years War. The French officers liked the jaunty air of the soldiers’ neck-
cloths, so the story goes, and so did their king, that great fashion plate Louis XIV.
Louis appointed a master cravatier, established a light cavalry regiment called the Royal Cravates,
and equipped his forces with silk cravats. Every morning, the royal cravatier would present the king
with a basketful of cravats, decorated with ribbons of crimson, scarlet, orange and pale blue. The
king would chose one, tie the knot himself, and leave the arrangement to the cravatier.
So ends the pretty tale. Other authorities argue that Louis had little or nothing to do with it: that the
cravat had already evolved in England from satin and velvet ribbons that held together a ‘crabbat’,
or neck frill.
Whatever the truth, the style spread quickly. In 1660, the first cravat reached America, ordered from
England for £5 by the Governor of Virginia. If this sounds expensive for the time, Charles II’s
successor, James II, paid £36 and ten shillings for a cravat of Venice lace to wear at his coronation
in 1685.
The cravat could be worn in many ways – with coloured ribbons, or in a bow under the chin, or
loosely knotted. In 1692, English troops surprised the French near Steinkirk in Belgium and shortly
thereafter a style ‘a la Steinkerque’ became the rage. This involved twisting the long ends together
and using a buttonhole as anchor, which is what the French troops are imagined to have done in
their haste to get to battle.
Before all of these styles could be sorted out, the loose cravat gave way to the stock, which was a
tight neck-band of folded linen, sometimes stiffened with horsehair or whalebone. Stocks were worn
from the 1730s and they still are today in a modified version with hunt uniform.
In the ‘solitaire’, a black ribboned bow which could be worn over the stock, we have a precursor of
the formal ‘black tie’, but in the 1780s the cravat was back in favour. It consisted now of a large
square of linen which was doubled into a triangle, then folded over and over before being passed
round and sometimes round and round the neck and then knotted or tied in a bow.
The cravat was required to nestle in such a manner that the upright points of the starched shirt
collar showed just above its top edge, thereby all but encasing the lower jaw. Pristine white and
lightly starched, it became the object of more fuss than any other item in sartorial history.
The peerless Beau Brummell was prepared to invest an entire morning in quest of the perfect
swathing and the perfect knot. The story is told of a visitor calling upon the beau and finding himself
knee-deep in crumpled linen. “Sir,” said the valet, “these are our failures.”
Lesser interpreters could get themselves into dire straits. Dickens writes of a character throttling
himself to the point where ‘I almost believe I saw creases come into the whites of his eyes.’
It was all too much to sustain, if not to bear. By the 1830s, the blinding billows of white starch were a
memory, to be persevered only in the starched white fronts of evening dress. Loosely-knotted
scarfs were affected for a time and these took many forms; one style, dubbed the ‘Byron’, was
narrow enough to pass for a string tie.
Around mid-century we at last come upon the term ‘necktie’. The cravat was by now being wound
around the neck once and tied in front with a very large and often loud-coloured bow (from whence,
the ‘bow tie’) or else it was tightly knotted at the throat to leave long ends dangling down the shirt-
front (from whence the standard modern tie) , or it was folded across the chest and fixed with a pin
in a style which would become the ascot. That dubious item, the ‘made-up’ bow tie, also made its
début in the 1860s.
It so chanced that the knot-and-dangle version provided an ideal focal point for a new kind of
‘lounging’ jacket with V-opening at the chest, and together they proceeded to conquer the entire
world, as suit and tie. The phenomenon happened so swiftly that the conquest was all but complete
by 1900.
Major design advances occurred in the 1920s, when an American tie manufacturer named Jesse
Langsdorf pioneered a construction method which enabled the tie to snap back into shape after
knotting. This featured the use of loose stitching and a bias-cut wool interlining, where previously
flannel bad been used. By the 1930s, quality ties were being expertly cut, always on the cross grain
of the fabric, to achieve maximum resilience.
How to dress like a gentleman- A guide on the history of the necktie worn by the gentleman
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