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History
The cravat originated in the 1630s; like most men's fashions
between the 17th century and World War I, it was of military
origin. In the reign of Louis XIII of France, Croatian
mercenaries were enlisted into a regiment supporting the
King and Cardinal Richelieu against the Duc de Guise and the
Queen Mother, Marie de Medici. The traditional Croat
military kit aroused Parisian curiosity about the unusual,
picturesque scarves distinctively knotted at the Croats'
necks; the cloths that were used, ranged from the coarse
cloths of enlisted soldiers, to the fine linens and silks of
the officers. The sartorial word "cravat" derives from the
French "cravat", a corrupt French pronunciation of "Croat"
— in Croatian, "Hrvat".
Considering the interdependence of many European regions
(particularly the French) with the Venetian Republic, which
occupied most of Croatia's coast, and the word's uncertain
philological origin, the new male neck dress was known as a
cravat. The French readily switched from old-fashioned
starched linen ruffs to the new loose linen and muslin
cravats; the military styles often had broad, laced edges,
while a gentleman's cravat could be of fine lace. As an
extreme example of the style, the sculptor Grinling Gibbons
carved a realistic cravat in white limewood which is now on
display at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
A Regency style neck cloth tied in a bow on a Grafton collar.
On returning to England from exile in 1660, Charles II
imported with him the latest new word in fashion: "A
cravat is another kind of adornment for the neck being
nothing else but a long towel put about the Collar, and so
tied before with a Bow Knott; this is the original of all
such Wearing; but now by the Art and Inventions of the
seamstress, there is so many new ways of making them, that it
would be a task to name, much more to describe them".
(Randle Holme, Academy of Armory and Blazon, 1688.)
During the wars of Louis XIV of 1689–1697, except for court,
the flowing cravat was replaced with the more current and
equally military "Steinkirk", named after the Battle of
Steenkerque in 1692. The Steinkirk was a long, narrow, plain
or lightly trimmed neck cloth worn with military dress,
wrapped once about the neck in a loose knot, with the lace
of fringed ends twisted together and tucked out of the way
into a button-hole, either of the coat or the waistcoat. The
steinkirk was popular with men and women until the 1720s.
The macaronis reintroduced the flowing cravat in the 1770s,
and the manner of a man's knotting it became indicative of
his taste and style, to the extent that after the Battle of
Waterloo (1815) the cravat, itself, was referred to as a
"tie". |
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Types of knots - Conventional
Tie
The shape and size of a necktie knot
is determined by the type of knot. Generally, more knot
steps result in a larger knot, but other factors weigh in
also, such as the material of the tie.
There are four main knots & the simplest, the four-in-hand
knot, may be the most common. The others (in order of
difficulty) are:
* the Pratt knot (the Shelby knot)
* the half-Windsor knot
* the Windsor knot (the double-Windsor)
The Windsor knot is the thickest knot of the four, since its
tying has the most steps.
Other types include: |
