Males wearing conventional seventeenth century uniform line up throughout a ceremony marking the “Cravat Day” in central Zagreb on October 18, 2011.
Hrvoje Polan/AFP by way of Getty Photos
disguise caption
toggle caption
Hrvoje Polan/AFP by way of Getty Photos
For a lot of within the enterprise world, a return to work after the winter break will imply as soon as once more donning the dreaded go well with and tie. The company neckwear is the on a regular basis counterpart to the historically extra luxurious cravat – a voluminous neckscarf that conjures up photographs of opulent dinners aboard a yacht crusing via the Mediterranean.
President Abraham Lincoln wore cravats, as did Hollywood actor Cary Grant and the extravagant entertainer Liberace. In more moderen occasions, the garment has been popularized within the American mainstream by the likes of Madonna and the late Diane Keaton.
American pianist Liberace (Władziu Valentino Liberace, 1919-1987), waves as he descends the steps of his airplane on a go to to Britain, London Airport, March thirtieth, 1960.
Night Customary/Getty Photos/Hulton Archive
disguise caption
toggle caption
Night Customary/Getty Photos/Hulton Archive
On this installment of NPR’s “Word of the Week” collection we hint the origins of the “cravat” (borrowed from the French “cravate”) again to the battlefields of seventeenth century Europe and discover its hyperlinks to the fashionable day necktie, patented in New York greater than 100 years in the past.
“Scarves worn around the neck existed long before, but the story of the cravat truly begins in the Thirty Years’ War when it first gained wider European recognition,” explains Filip Hren, a army historian on the Croatian Catholic College in Zagreb.
Hren is referring to the 1618-48 battle fought between Catholics and Protestants and generally known as Europe’s final spiritual conflict.
The phrase “cravate” first appeared within the French language to explain army apparel worn by Croatian mercenaries who have been famend amongst their enemies for his or her brutal combating prowess.
“The Swedish king said they are the new tribe of the devil,” says Hren.
The “swift, fast and deadly” Croats, who entered the conflict in service of the Holy Roman Empire, wore distinctive pink scarves round their necks. Made from silk or cotton, the material is claimed to have been used to guard their faces towards chilly climate and smoke in battle, and to deal with accidents.
“Wounded soldiers could use the scarf as a bandage, but it also had symbolic meaning,” says Vladimir Brnardić, a historian and journalist who has written extensively about Croatian army historical past.
“There are legends that young women and the wives of soldiers tied the scarf around the necks of their beloved to show their trust and love for them, and to signify that they would be waiting for them when they return,” he provides.
The French military seen the Croats’ combating abilities – and their trend sense – recruiting many into elite cavalry regiments that might grow to be generally known as the Royal Cravates.
Circa 1661, King Louis XIV of France, (1638 – 1715), king of France from 1643. He was generally known as ‘The Solar King’.
Getty Photos/Hulton Archive
disguise caption
toggle caption
Getty Photos/Hulton Archive
“The scarves took their names from Croats. It was tied in a Croatian manner, or in French – a la Croate,” explains Filip Hren.
King Louis XIV launched the cravat into French trend and from Paris it quickly unfold throughout Europe.
“King Louis XIV was particularly fond of the cravat and it’s said that his pages would bring cravats to him every morning. He was a role model for the French nobility and for many other European rulers as well,” says Hren.
The earliest use of the English model “cravat,” in response to the Oxford English Dictionary, was recorded in 1656 within the writing of English antiquary and lexicographer Thomas Blount.
Within the nineteenth century, the rise of bourgeois society within the Industrial Revolution noticed the arrival of the necktie. Historians say the accent grew to become an emblem of professionalism and social self-discipline, “particularly in men’s clothing.” Within the twentieth century it entered enterprise, diplomatic and political tradition, and “became a means of personal expression.”
In French and lots of different European languages, the phrase for “necktie” nonetheless retains an etymological hyperlink to the phrases for “Croats”.
“Krawatte” in German. In Spanish, “corbata.” “Cravatta” in Italian and “gravata” in Greek.
The necktie as we all know it at present was patented in New York within the early Nineteen Twenties by tailor Jesse Langsdorf.
U.S. actor Robert Downey Jr. attends the ‘Iron Man’ premiere at Warner Moderno Cinema on April 23, 2008 in Rome, Italy.
Elisabetta Villa/Getty Photos Europe
disguise caption
toggle caption
Elisabetta Villa/Getty Photos Europe
“Langsdorf created a revolution when we talk about neckties. He designed it in a way that it keeps its [form] and not to be soft as a pure silk scarf,” says Igor Mladinović, co-founder of the Cravaticum Museum in Zagreb, which amongst its reveals hosts a “bulletproof” necktie made in Thailand and one other sewn from the pores and skin of a useless snake.
New patterns, colours and materials have outlined its evolution, typically reflecting new trend tendencies, social and financial change. Considerably so after the Second World Battle when the invention of polyester cloth made neckties extra reasonably priced to fabricate and purchase. The designs additionally grew to become brighter and extra colourful.
“The necktie has changed in terms of material and pattern design, but the way it is produced has remained unchanged for the last 100 years,” provides Mladinović.
Through the years, the necktie has come to represent success, sophistication and standing, however has additionally been criticized by some as an emblem of energy, management and oppression. In that method, maybe, it echoes partially a few of the earliest seventeenth century origins of its ancestor, the cravat.
