http://www.capitol-college.edu/troxler/essay9.htm [1] Thoughts from Under a Black Hat Be sure to read the other essays in the "[2]Thoughts from Under a Black Hat" series. The Tie that Binds Chafes and Otherwise Annoys An ancient sore throat, military insecurity, a foppish French king, an English king trying to out run the headsman's axe and the biologically driven display behavior of territorial males rendezvous at and torment an important part of the male anatomy. The rendezvous site is the neck. The torment is the necktie. It is long past time for men to shuck off the wizened tyranny of the most ludicrous garment in the male wardrobe. How Do you Tie a Fascalia? The original Croatian neck scarf was a large ribbon wound around the neck several times. Linen or muslin with broad lace edges were the most typical material choices for the cravat. Wizened? Yes, aged, ancient, old. Call it what you may, the origin of the necktie dates back farther in time than almost every other article of men's clothing except sandals and belts. The business began in the Roman Senate where members had to speak, without the benefit of electronic amplification or distribution, to hundreds of people for extended periods of time. A marathon speech delivered at high volume strains the voice box. Every good singer and speaker knows that to project and preserve the voice, the throat must be relaxed and open. Chill the throat and kill the voice. So, those ancient Romans wrapped scarves around their necks to keep their throats warm and their voice boxes ready to perform instantly and at length during politically opportune moments. The Romans called a scarf used to warm the throat a fascalia. The fascalia became a symbol of status and power. You had to be somebody to wear a fascalia. Not to be out-powered by a bunch of politicians, Roman generals quickly adopted the fascalia as part of their uniform. It was a badge of rank for them not all together different than stars on a modern general's uniform. Some of these Roman generals served in the Balkans where the fascalia left a strong impression on the people of the land we call Croatia. The Roman Empire fell but the fascalia remained as part of Croat heritage. Croatian infantry soldiers wore the neck scarf. Civilians began wearing it as part of Sunday dress. Young men and women took up the fascalia as a symbol of attachment something akin to the way fraternity pins used to be given to a girl as a token of intention. The fascalia became, and remains today, a national symbol for Croatia. Nearly a thousand years after the fall of Rome, Croatia became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the first half of the seventeenth century France and Austro-Hungary became allies in a complicated thirty-three year long war that devastated much of Europe. In 1660 when the long war ended, Croatian light infantry soldiers with their decorative neck scarves reached Paris, France. King Louis XIV of France Louis XIV was smitten by the fashion drama of those Croatian neck scarves. As a practical matter, the soft, flexible Croatian scarf was more comfortable to wear than the high, starched collar nobility wore at the time. Louis had begun to lose his hair and to disguise his balding, the king started wearing wigs. Le Roi Soleil, The Sun King as Louis was called, set the fashion pace for his court. Soon Louis' wig-wearing was taken up by other royals and the upper classes. The "allonge" style wig was the hands down favorite. It had long curled hair that draped over the shoulders and conveniently hid most of the stiff, traditional collar men wore. The big wigs made unnecessary the always undesirable, scratchy, confining collar. Louis XIV abandoned the stiff collar for the soft, comfortable, colorful neck scarf of Croatia. ^ Louis XIV - King of France Think of Louis XIV as the vector on which the necktie began its, so far, unfatigued journey in the West. He gave the tie status and a name. In true French fashion, the old Roman word fascalia for the scarf was replaced by a term derived from the French word for Croatia. The French called the neck scarf a "cravat". Louis was so enamored by the Croatian neck scarf that a cravatier (tie maker) became part of the staff that dressed the king each morning. The cravatier would bring an assortment of cravats from which the king would choose. In those days the cravat was wrapped twice around the neck and tied in back. A second neck scarf was worn over the first making the circumference of the combined scarves nearly as large as a man's head. To complete the male fashion statement, a black neck scarf was worn high on the neck and more or less buried the chin. Louis' devout, and perhaps obsessive, dedication to this fashion meant that the neck scarf quickly became emblematic of royalty and class status. King Charles II of England Charles II King of England The cravat may have remained solely a French trademark of status had it not been for some miserable English history. In 1651 England began an experiment in conservative government. Neither kings nor thinkers were welcome in that experiment, so, Charles II, King of England took exile in France. When the cravat showed up in France, Charles II, who was desperately searching for any symbol he could employ to assert his royal status, began to wear the gaudy neck scarves. It worked. That very year parliament invited Charles II to return to the throne of England. He brought the cravat with him and all those royal wannabes glommed onto the new article of clothing as both a symbol of status and renewed order in society. Soon no gentleman would consider himself dressed without a proper cravat. With Internet-like speed the dubious garment made a dash across the Atlantic to the, soon-to-be-revolting colonies. Nothing in a man's life has been the same since those rapid-fire fashion victories of the cravat. In various widths, lengths, patterns, colors, and knot styles and with horizontal or vertical manifestations, the necktie remains astride the necks of western males. Ironically, those stiff, tight, constricting collars that Louis XIV was so eager to abandon have returned as standard garb. I think of the necktie in the same way I think of the ritual of drinking tequila - salt on the rim of the glass, a lime and the tequila. Substitute neck, collar and tie in the tequila ritual and the end result is the same. You may feel better because of the ritual, but it can't be good for you. "Hmmm..Which one shall I wear today?" Fashion prophets and sociologists have often predicted the passing of the necktie. After all, they say, the tie is useless. Unlike shoes, belts or britches, a tie doesn't "do" anything for the wearer. These experts also argue that a tie is often in the way and is inconvenient to wear. Rise to greet someone at dinner and there is a fifty-fifty chance your soup d' jour will become soup d' cravat. Dry cleaning a tie destroys the inner stuffing that gives a tie its body and feel. So, those of us who find ties useful as bibs have higher than necessary wardrobe bills. Ties are expensive to buy. While ties sell at computer shows for $12, a haberdashery tie easily costs $60 and with a prominent designer's name on it, the purchase price can run upwards of $100. Clearly, the tie has men by the throat. Why does the contemporary cravat continue to hold center stage in men's fashions? In answering this question be careful not to confuse functionality with purpose. What the tie does is to proclaim the wearer's high status. Functionality is irrelevant. The secret to understanding the peculiar phenomenon of the necktie is to accept that people will endure any amount of inconvenience and expense to create the illusion of higher status than they actually have. Arf. The truth is, as long as bankers, politicians, and corporate leaders wear ties, the up-and-coming generation who seek those positions will wear ties. A tie says the wearer is important, has some power, and benefits from higher- than-average status. When a man wraps a tie around his neck and coaxes the long end through the twists and turns of a full Windsor knot, his action is little different than a dog circling a fire hydrant. Just as certainly as a dog marks his territory and defines his status to others of his species, a tie conveys the wearer's status to his species. A tie is about basic biological urges and insecurities. A tie is the ultimate tribal statement. It has nothing to do with either fashion or functionality. I have no idea whether dogs appreciate the status conveyed by a man's tie. I can tell you that I have never figured out their fire hydrant thing. All of my hope for the end of the tyrannical reign of the cravat lies in the informality and swift practicality of the emerging Internet Generation. These young people have buffaloed economists, altered the international business world and drawn ordinary people into a technological world, all in the span of about five years. If they cannot kill Louis XIV's foppish curse upon us, I suppose the neck noose will be around for the next millennium celebration. As I wrote this essay I began to worry that my own dislike of the tie was just personal pique not widely shared or even sharable. I sought some independent verification on my opinion and found it at an Internet site - [3]www.learn2.com. This site offers tutorials on how to do thousands of things. You can learn how to be a Best Man at a wedding through tutorial 0634. At tutorial 0439 you learn how to burp a baby. I did, however, stay away from tutorial 0556 - how to take body measurements. I wasn't sure whose body they had in mind and exactly what part of it was to be measured and for what purpose. Tutorials 0537 and 0538 provided the verification I sought. These tutorials teach how to tie a common necktie and a bow tie. The verification comes from the position of these instructions within the database. If a necktie is really important, the instructions for tying it would be at the head of the database and have a low tutorial number. As it is, vastly more important things precede tutorial 0537 - instructions on how to tie a tie. Tutorial 0442 teaches how to clean a fish and 0436 teaches how to break-in a baseball mitt. Ipso facto, fishing and baseball are vastly more important to men than neckties. The final bit of confirmation of my theory that neckties are silently despised, and actually may be dangerous, was found in tutorial 0723 - how to perform the Heimlich maneuver. The authors of the database recognized that, as soon as you don a necktie, you risk death by suffocation. Hence the placement of how to perform the Heimlich maneuver following how to tie a tie. God only knows how many innocent men have expired from a constricted windpipe caused by an overly tight cravat. So, come on Internet Generation, I'm counting on you to end Louis' blight. Be bold. Overcome male insecurity. Walk away from the primordial calling of territory. You do not need to display your tribal status to be a real man. You can do it. You can run the world with a naked neck. gwt.gif (1400 bytes) G. William Troxler, Ph.D. President The Tie that Binds Should 21st century men have to wear ties? Total of 29 votes Yes (6) 21% No (23) 79% Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding _________________________________________________________________ Links [4]http://elsinore.cis.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1991/2/91.02.01 .x.html The history of fashion during Louis the XIV rule. [5]http://academia-cravatica.hr/croata1_en.html Croatian site with the history of the necktie. [6]http://www.fashionmall.com/flusser_book/doc/ch4.htm A site with a thorough history of the tie. [7]http://fly.hiwaay.net/~jimes/necktie/ A site with general information about ties, including how to tie a necktie. [8]http://www.learn2.com This site has hundreds of brief, clear tutorials that teach how to do lots of useful things including how to tie a necktie. [9]http://www.artquilt.com/books/categories/materials/necktie.htm If you want to learn about better uses for the necktie than wearing one, visit this site for information on how people turn neckties into quilts. Popular books on the subject include: Necktie Sampler Blocks (Love to Quilt) by Janet B. Elwin, 1997. Ties Ties Ties: Traditional Quilts from Neckties by Janet B. Elwin, 1996. Quilts from Neckties by Sharon Newman, 1995. [10]http://home.vicnet.net.au/~jlandman/TYKcontents.htm The Site of the Pulitzer Prize winning book "Tie Yourself in Knots". [11]http://www.fashion-ties.com/cravate/ This website is dedicated to the necktie. It's called cravatring. [12]http://www.geocities.com/~knot/web_99.html A Cravat Ring site with images of all kinds of extraordinary neckties. Images Louis XIV in Majesty, 1701, by H. Rigaud From: [13]http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Faculty/Gallo/Louis.html Charles II From [14]http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon49.html The author captured the image of Alexis, the dog, on her way to the fire hydrant. _________________________________________________________________ Responses welcome: [15]http://webboard.capitol-college.edu/~blackhat Be sure to read the other essays in the "[16]Thoughts from Under a Black Hat" series. © 2000, G. William Troxler All rights reserved. The views expressed in this essay are not statements of the official position or policy of Capitol College on any matter. Dr. Troxler's essay does not necessarily reflect views of the faculty or Board of Trustees of Capitol College. This essay was not reviewed by the faculty or board prior to publication. Dr. Troxler offers his opinions to the Capitol College community as a means of stimulating discussion and prompting the notion that Capitol's students should participate in an education experience that attempts to balance the development of excellent, marketable technical skills with the expansion of peripheral intellect. 1pixblue.gif (41 bytes) [17]home | [18]help | [19]contact capitol spacer.gif (67 bytes) _________________________________________________________________ Capitol College - 11301 Springfield Road - Laurel, Maryland 20708 - 301-369-2800 / 800-950-1992 References 1. http://webboard.capitol-college.edu/~blackhat 2. http://www.capitol-college.edu/troxler/default.htm 3. http://www.learn2.com/ 4. http://elsinore.cis.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1991/2/91.02.01.x.html 5. http://academia-cravatica.hr/croata1_en.html 6. http://www.fashionmall.com/flusser_book/doc/ch4.htm 7. http://fly.hiwaay.net/~jimes/necktie/ 8. http://www.learn2.com/ 9. http://www.artquilt.com/books/categories/materials/necktie.htm 10. http://home.vicnet.net.au/~jlandman/TYKcontents.htm 11. http://www.fashion-ties.com/cravate/ 12. http://www.geocities.com/~knot/web_99.html 13. http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Faculty/Gallo/Louis.html 14. http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon49.html 15. http://webboard.capitol-college.edu/~blackhat 16. http://www.capitol-college.edu/troxler/default.htm 17. http://www.capitol-college.edu/default.htm 18. http://www.capitol-college.edu/resources/help.htm 19. http://www.capitol-college.edu/inquire/default.htm