The History of Ties

The necktie is an accepted item of men's dress that has taken over three hundred years to reach its present form. Ties have been used to proclaim status, occupation, and even identity, as well as allegiance to a group or cause. Neckwear has also had utilitarian purposes—to protect the neck or hide buttons on a shirt.

1650-1720s

Neckwear, because of its proximity to the face, was of prime importance to those who could afford it. From the end of the sixteenth century the word “Band” was loosely applied to any neckwear that was not a ruff. It could indicate a plain attached shirt collar or a detached band that draped over the doublet collar. This latter was known as a “falling band”, and was usually a separate collar that fitted around the neck inside the doublet collar.
“A cravatte is another kind of adornment for the neck being nothing else but a long towel put about the Collar, and so tyed before with a Bow Knott; this is the original of all such Wearings; but now by the Art and Inventions of the seamsters, 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 Armony and Blazon – 1688). The reference to “a long towel” and “bow knot” are easily understood; the cravat was simply placed about the neck and tied in a bow at the front by a string or ribbon tied in a bow.

By the 1670s the cravat had become a rectangular “towel” gathered at the front and usually fastened by a prominent silk ribbon tied in a bow. The neck stud, an additional decoration to neckwear, made its appearance during the 1670s as the cravat became progressively more sophisticated in style and construction. The desire to have a jewel at the neck has persisted through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the present day. Sometimes neck studs matched rich shirt sleeve buttons or cuff-links of precious metals set with jewels.

By the 1690s cravats had fallen out of fashion, although they continued to be worn for formal occasions. The long lace cravat was replaced by a plain or lightly trimmed neckcloth, and the change was perhaps accelerated by the influence of military dress during the French war of 1689-97.
The neckcloth was very simple to wear, being a long narrow piece of linen or muslin tied just once about the neck in a loose knot, with a lace of fringed ends. When the ends were twisted together and tucked into a button-hole (of either a coat or a waistcoat) the neckcloth was called a Steinkirk or Steenkirk, with takes its name from the battle of Steenkirk in Flanders in 1692. The steinkirk proved to be popular with both men and women until the 1720s.

1720-1800

During the eighteenth century, men's neckwear changed steadily. Old names were adopted for new styles, as with the reintroduced cravat of the 1770s. The ready-made cravat reappeared in a slightly different form a hundred and fifty year later its first appearance.

The cravat made its appearance sometime between 1770s and 1780s, and its return can be attributed to the fashions introduced by a group that became known as “Macaroni's”, young Englishmen who returned from their European Tour with new ideas on dress which had seen in Italy.
The Gentlemen's and London Magazine in 1777 mentioned that “the Macaroni's (being) the silken ornament worn by way of a cravat, is of such importance to true taste, especially when the knot is elegantly fringed”. It would also appear to be the Macaroni style of neckwear that was adopted by women to wear with their riding habits at this time. These neckcloths, tied in a small bow, could either be trimmed with lace or be made purely of muslin. Decoration was becoming more and more restrained as the Rococo gave away to the Neo-Classical style.
The emphasis on line rather than ornament, stemmed from the interest in classical art which had been stimulated by the earlier discoveries of the Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii in the 1740s. This tendency to plainer dressing also reflected a social change, a growing dissatisfaction with the established order of society, building up into radical storm that was to become the War of Independence in North America and the Revolution in France.

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