Neckties - A Complete History On The Tie

Most men, probably including yourself, pay little attention to the tie that they knot around their necks on a regular basis. Whether you will be wearing a hand-me-down bargain basement tie or a designer silk creation, your tie is a result of several centuries worth of fashion hits and misses. Its roots might seem a little strange to you right now, but the ties ancestors and gradual evolution is always worth a mention to every tie-wearing guy.

The Origins of Yester-Tie
Neckties come from a very long lineage of neck adornments that can be traced all the way back to about 200 BCE. The Chinese dynasties from that period already had a form of fashion adornment that draped down from peoples necks, in their case to show social stature. Although many cultures had their own incarnation of the neckties ancestor, it was the version from China thats generally regarded as the first and earliest one.

Purely sartorial uses for neck adornments, however, began much later, in the 17th century. Veterans of the Thirty Years War came back from the field wearing little neckerchiefs that caught the eye of the French king Louis XIV arguably one of the most fashionable rulers in history. It sparked a craze for neck adornments that blazed through most of Europe, and eventually became a norm for male fashion.

Neckties of Not-So-Long-Ago
The latter part of the 18th century saw the beginnings of the industrial revolution, as well as the earliest versions of the modern necktie that you know so well (and wear so often). The widespread urbanization in England called for neckwear that would be convenient for factory workers to put on and keep on all day, a need out of which the contemporary slim necktie was born.

By the late 19th and early 20th century, the trend had fully crossed the Atlantic into the United States, and Americans of that period began making their own versions. In 1926, New Yorker Jesse Langdorf began cutting ties along the bias of the fabric, making for more elastic ties. Other innovations like the slipstitch used to secure the lining were also introduced in this era.

Ties til Today
The early 20th century was when a lot of new things were tried out on the tie, and many of those trials grew into the classics that you often see today. Post-WWI America, for example, was a hot market for hand-painted ties. Ties with regimental stripes were common in England by the 1920s. And though ties from the WWII era were worn a bit differently, you can already recognize the tie that you knot every morning on your neck.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, ties fluctuated from wild and wide to thin and restrained, depending on the pop culture icons of the time. Bold colors, art deco designs and pop art prints are just some of the trends that caught the public by the neck and then settled slowly into their respective niche markets.

As you knot your tie every morning, remember that you are handling not just any piece of cloth. It is a descendant of many greats, the result of several centuries worth of imitation, innovation and guys who just wanted to look good.