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

Necktie Paradox

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The necktie paradox is a puzzle or paradox within the subjectivistic interpretation of probability theory. It is a variation of the two envelope paradox.

Two men are each given a necktie by their wives as a Christmas present. Over drinks they start arguing over who has the more expensive necktie. They agree to have a wager over it. They will consult their wives and find out which necktie is the more expensive. The terms of the bet are that the man with the more expensive necktie has to give it to the other as a consolation prize.

The first man considers this: The probability of me winning or losing is 50:50. If I lose, then I lose the value of my necktie. If I win, then I win more than the value of my necktie. In other words, I can bet x and have a 50% chance of winning more than x. Therefore it is definitely in my interest to make the wager. The second man can consider the wager in exactly the same way; therefore, paradoxically, it is in both men's interest to wager their neckties.

Moral of the story? Buy the best quality tie for the cheapest price you can... we know a place!


http://www.tiesplanet.com