Cravat

Croatian baroque poet Ivan Gundulić; the oldest known portrait with a cravat, 1622 [1]

The cravat (/krəˈvæt/) is a neckband, the forerunner of the modern tailored necktie and bow tie, originating from a style worn by members of the seventeenth-century military unit known as the Croats.[2]

From the end of the sixteenth century, the term band applied to any long-strip neckcloth that was not a ruff. The ruff, a starched, pleated white linen strip, originated earlier in the sixteenth century as a neckcloth (readily changeable, to minimize the soiling of a doublet), as a bib, or as a napkin. A band could be either a plain, attached shirt collar or a detachable "falling band" that draped over the doublet collar. It is possible that initially, cravats were worn to hide soil on shirts.[3] Alternatively, it was thought to serve as psychological protection of the neck during battle from attack by a spear.

History

The cravat originated in the 1630s. Like most men's fashions between the seventeenth century and World War I, it was of military origin. In the reign of Louis XIII of France, Croatian mercenaries[4] were enlisted into a regiment supporting the king and Cardinal Richelieu against the Duke of 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 cravate, a variant of Croate.

Croatia celebrates Cravat Day on October 18.[5]

Considering the interdependence of many European regions (particularly the French) with the Venetian Republic, which at the time ruled much of the coastal area of modern Croatia, and the word's uncertain philologic origin, the new neckdress for men was known as a cravate. The French readily switched from old-fashioned starched linen ruffs to the new loose linen and muslin cravates. 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 that is now on display at Chatsworth House.

On returning to England from exile in 1660, Charles II imported with him the latest new word in fashion: "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".[6]

During the wars of Louis XIV of 16891697, 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 neckcloth 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 maccaronis reintroduced the flowing cravat in the 1770s, and the manner of a man's knotting became indicative of his taste and style, to the extent that after the Battle of Waterloo (1815) the cravat began to be referred to as a "tie".

Steinkirk

A Steinkirk was a type of cravat designed to be worn in deliberate disarray. The fashion apparently began after troops at the Battle of Steenkerque in 1692 had no time to tie their cravats properly before going into action. Colley Cibber's play The Careless Husband (1704) had a famous Steinkirk Scene.

See also

References

  1. "Vijesti".
  2. Frucht 2004, p. 457.
  3. Coffignon, A. (1888). Paris vivant. Les coulisses de la mode p.104. La librairie illustrée, Paris
  4. Darko Zubrinic. "Cravat, die Krawatte". Croatianhistory.net. Retrieved 2014-07-17.
  5. Heather Horn (October 18, 2012). "The Tie Is a Very Big Deal in Croatia". The Atlantic Cities. Atlantic Media Company. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
  6. Randle Holme, Academy of Armory and Blazon, 1688.

Sources

  • Frucht, Richard C. (2004). Eastern Europe: an introduction to the people, lands, and culture. Vol. 2. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-800-6.
  • The dictionary definition of cravat at Wiktionary
  • The Art of Tying the Cravat (1828) by H. Le Blanc, Esq. (reprinted as ISBN 978-1-145-53416-2)
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