The History of the Tie - Part One

We've decided it was about time you necktie fanatics were educated about the tie and the history of it. It's quite clear they are a great piece of attire, but in our series of blog entries we hope to teach you a bit of something about the history of the humble tie.

In part one we tell you about the necktie's beginnings...

From Wikipedia:
The necktie can be traced back to the time of the Thirty Year War (1618-1648) when Croatian mercenaries in French service, wearing their traditional small, knotted neckerchiefs, aroused the interest of the Parisians.[1] The new article of clothing started a fashion craze in Europe where both men and women wore pieces of fabric around their necks. In the late seventeenth century, the men wore lace cravats that took a large amount of time and effort to arrange. These cravats were often tied in place by cravat strings, arranged neatly and tied in a bow.

And from curiousexpeditions.org/:
The French fashion of the early 1600’s was a white lace ruff worn around the neck. This stiff, uncomfortable style extended even to French soldiers. Come the Thirty Years War, these ruffled Frenchies found themselves fighting alongside a group of fierce Croatian horsemen for hire.

One can imagine the French soldiers scratchy necked jealousy at looking over and finding that these tough Croats wore no ruffles but simply a cloth tied neatly around their necks. It wasn’t just the soldiers who noticed . The military higher ups were equally taken with it and within a decade the sun king himself, Louis XIV, was seen “a la Croat”. So it was that the cravat, a bastardization of the French word for Croatians, was born. It didn’t hurt the cravat’s popularity that France was strapped for cash during the war. While a ruff used many meters of lace and was very expensive, a hip cravat could be had for a pittance. Everyone from Charles II of England to Napoleon tied one on.


Ties in their current form available from: http://www.tiesplanet.com