Taking Stock of the Cravat

(Part 2 of the series,  "The Secret Life of the Tie.")

Chapter 80

Last week, we left our brief history of neckwear at the tail end of the eighteenth century. In the 1780s, the standard 'tie' was the stock, a simple gathered muslin rectangle that fastened at the back of the neck, over the shirtcollar, and had been the going fashion for nearly a century. They were directly related to the high, stiff, black, horsehair neck stocks worn by the military, but were unstarched, lighter, and a good deal more comfortable. They started as tall as the collar itself, but toward the end of the century stocks had grown progressively lower, and the collar was starting to turn over the top of the stock.

If history had progressed in a straight line, we would have a much different take on the 'tie' today...but there was a new fashion on the horizon, born of the American and French Revolutions, and due in no small part to a man named George Bryan 'Beau' Brummell, and a group called the Dandies.

The short version of the story is, Brummell and his ilk nearly single-handedly turned the direction of male fashion away from silk, lace, and gold embroidery; to a new aesthetic of immaculate tailoring, exactitude of fit, sober colors, and plain fabrics. The whole story can easily be found elsewhere with much more detail and anecdotal interest than I can supply here; I shall keep the focus, for now, simply on ties.

Brummell's contribution to neckwear was no small one, for he is responsible for abandoning the stock in favor of the cravat of a century earlier, and more importantly, introducing to it the starch of the Elizabethan ruff. The unkempt folds and wrinkles of the white muslin stock were at odds with the crisp lines and clean tailoring of the Beau's shirts and jackets, so the lines of the neck-cloth were streamlined and smoothed as well, with stiffly starched white linen, carefully arranged with precise creases and artful knots. The new look was futuristic, optimistic, and exciting. There was quite a stir around the invention of many various recognizable styles and knots, each of which had a name and a proper procedure for its correct arrangement.

In 1818, a satirical pamphlet was published called Neckclothitania; or, Tietania: Being an Essay on Starchers, by One of the Cloth. In addition to being the first printed instance of calling a cravat a "Tie," which alone is enough to warrant its immortality, it is an interesting view into the author's opinion of the "Starchers" of the time. It is also a darn good read in its own right: tongue-in-cheek and highly entertaining.

As there can hardly be a better source for describing the Starchers of the Regency era than a first-hand account, here is the book itself, with its frontispiece plate illustration, for your perusal:

It is worthwhile to pay particular attention to the various styles and their construction; as many of them have a direct lineage to the styles of neckwear worn today.

Another small book has been printed by H. LeBlanc in 1828, called The Art of Tying the Cravat, which is a more scholarly take on the Starcher -- an instruction manual, in fact, that teaches 32 different styles in sixteen lessons. Bookending the lessons are some very keen observations that are worth a read. The shame of this book is, although the text is readily available online, the four multi-fold engraved illustrated plates are not. As the plates are key to understanding the instructions, the bulk of the book suffers without them. (Fortunately, several of the styles are illustrated in Neckclothitania, and several more can be intuited from logical derivation.) You need not be deprived of the engraved plates, though! Thanks to the Rubenstein Library's Special Collections at Duke University, which has a copy of the book in its stacks, I have been able to obtain digital images of the plates...so you can read the full text with the illustrations.

Plate A:

Plate B:

Plate C:

Plate D:

Of note here is the mention that black cravats are most commonly worn by 1828, although bright colors and patterns were "undress:" worn at home, in the morning, and for leisure activities. Pure white was (as today) considered most formal. Note also the mention of the use of whalebone stiffeners for some cravat designs -- a sign that, similar to the Elizabethan supportasses and cartwheel ruffs of 1590, the limits of starch were beginning to be reached.

If you are interested in a closer look at these two important books, I have re-edited them slightly, including the illustrations in-line at convenient locations and translating the French and Latin quotes therein.
 You can jump ahead and read them in Appendix 1 by clicking here.

The era of the elaborate Starcher came to an end, thanks primarily to the demands of the Industrial Revolution. By the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the popularity of the time-consuming and overly fussy cravats was waning -- businessmen didn't have the time to spend on them; and new factory workers' coal-effused and flywheel-spun environments weren't condusive to wearing them. In its place, a return to the stock; in the form of pre-tied cravats that fastened at the back of the neck. Darker colors became vogue, the collars loose, soft, and high, falling over cravats adorned with all manner of bows. Some were still hand-tied, but an increasing number of men were discovering the ease and simplicity of neckwear that didn't have to be tied at all.

The death-knell of the starched cravat was sounded as early as 1827, with the invention of the detachable shirt collar. Re-invention, actually, since we know from last week that it was presaged by the detachable Elizabethan ruff. The starched detachable linen collar was yet another time-and labor-saving device: it saved housewives laundering time and effort, extended the life of the shirt, and it stayed in place and looked good all day with little care. It looked so good, in fact, that by mid-century, it started to take center-stage over the cravat itself, folding over and hiding everything of the cravat save for the bow. Stand collars were popular for their simplicity, but the collar and the cravat had begun to change places -- the collar on the outside, the cravat underneath; the arrangement with which we are all familiar today. The cravat eventually dwindled to a narrow neckband under the collar, that merely served to form the frontal bow.

Three things happened to change the tide of neckwear in 1861:

The American Civil War drove a wedge between the raw-material-producing states of the South, and the finished-goods-producing states of the North. Collar manufacturers could get no Southern textiles.

The death of Prince Albert ushered in the Great Victorian Gloom, the Blackening of just about everything for the next half-century. Clothes got a great deal more monochromatic, and the only acceptable cheeriness of white details in one's clothing suddenly achieved a new importance.

1861 was also the advent of the paper collar. Born of wartime necessity, it became quite popular. The attraction of a completely disposable item that never needed washing, every morning a completely new collar, was irresistable. They were worn nearly universally, from gentlemen, to bankers, to the working-man, and were made in countless styles. Innovation begets innovation, and mad-scientist tailors developed ties to match the forward-thinking collars. Let's look at a few patent designs, just to get an idea of the variety of futuristic ideas that were in circulation.

Many of them were similar to this design for a pre-stitched bow that simply buttons directly to the front of the collar:

Or this even easier-to-wear design for a pre-made bow that pokes through slots in the collar:

The logical extension of a paper collar was a paper tie, like this one that attached to the front shirt-stud:

And how about this idea, which dispenses with the idea of the bow altogether, and deconstructs the tie into an extension of the collar itself:

The innovation of the era knew no bounds. Here is a rather brilliant idea for an easily-adjustable and washable bow tie that utilizes both front and back collar studs to secure it:

We'll conclude with another really neat idea; a convertible tie that can be made up like a cravat or a bow:

By the 1890s, the paper collar craze had played itself out, and starched linen detachables came to the forefront again. With them came a new tie style; the four-in-hand long tie. It was quick and easy to tie, and complemented the tall, close-set collar points of the era. By the new century, the long tie was far and away the most popular style of neckwear. Bow styles were taking a back seat in popularity.

Next week, we'll look at what became of all these cravat styles, and what survives in the present day.

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A Ruff History of Neckwear

(Part 1 of the series, "The Secret Life of the Tie.")

Chapter 79

It is time, at last, to talk about ties. You may have wondered at my lack of any substantial information on the subject thus far, considering that firstly, ties are a large part of Dressing Like a Grownup; and secondly, that Your Genial Host devotes a large portion of his time to designing and tailoring said neckwear. Indeed, other than the passing mention, the only installment dedicated to neckwear has been nothing more than a cursory overview of tying basic knots. The reason is simply this: it is far too important a subject to enter into lightly, without a firm grounding in the history of the subject. Any Average Guy can slap any old tie on a shirt and look like an adult -- but knowledge, as they say, is power, and a firm grasp on the history of neckwear will give you a sartorial advantage over, well, most everyone else on the planet. There are also some interesting blossoming trends in men's fashion that have undiscovered roots in centuries of history, and to take full advantage of this, it is best to know the source material, as it were.

We shall begin in the early 1500s. Neckwear was certainly in use before that time: exempli gratia, ancient Romans used a focalium, or neck cloth, to protect their throats against inclement weather. But as the ancients used neckwear as a necessity against cold or swords, not as fashion, we may skip ahead until that time that the shirt-collar became both functional and decorative, which was the Elizabethan ruff.

The ruff started simply enough, just the natural ruffle formed at the neck of a shirt by a drawstring. When shirts became more tailored, with neckholes and buttons instead of drawstrings, the ruff at the neck remained; this time as a changeable piece of cloth that protected the shirt and was washed separately. 

A double ruff double-goffered!

By the mid-1500s, the ruff was purely decorative, and could be quite elaborate, with double or triple layers, and of linen or trimmed in lace. It was the development of starch, though, that permitted the ruff to achieve a greater level of purely artistic expression. Cone-shaped goffering irons were heated in the fire and applied to heavily-starched ruffs to set them into the characteristic figure-eights that gave them their high lofts.

In the 1570s, ruffs were not overly wide, but starch allowed an impressive three to four inches in height from a single ruffle, that extended from shoulder to ears. It may look overly fussy to us today, but the new fashion of thin, delicate fabric standing out seemingly in defiance of gravity must have seemed magical. (These two groupings of men are details taken from the Somerset House Conference of 1604, but their conservative ruffs illustrate well the styles from the 1570s.) These gents demonstrate single, double, and treble ruffs, with goffering varying from tall and narrow to short and wide figure-eights from lightly starched and rather loose to thin and very stiff. The fellow on the end below wears his ruff tipped in lace.

"Starching houses" made a good business of washing, starching, and setting ever more elaborate ruffs, testing the limits of the science on the great and imaginative variety of ruff styles.

Single-layer cartwheel ruff.

In the 1580s, it was natural that ruffs would expand outward as well. Thin "cartwheel" ruffs, a foot or more wide, became en vogue; but the limits of starch had finally begun to be reached. To hold the ruff in place, "supportasses" or "underproppers" were developed, frames of wire or cardboard to keep the ruff from drooping or breaking.

At this point, the harmless frivolity that was the ruff became more trouble than it was worth. What started as simple protection for the shirtcollar -- light, elegant, and comfortable -- became overencumbered and overengineered with its own necessary infrastructure. Fortunately, the ruff had not much longer to be fashionable, (save in Holland,) thanks to Louis XIII. Quite simply, he wore his hair (natural or wigged) long -- and the one thing you can't do with a wide ruff, is wear it with long hair.

Louis XIII

The King favored wide flat lace collars that covered the shoulders. The ruff lived on (in unstarched form) as the "falling ruff," that laid over the shoulder in imitation of the flat collar -- after all, if you have a perfectly fine (and pricey) ruff, you don't just throw it out; you make it work within the current fashion.

Detail of Reubens' George Villiers.

For those who liked the effect of the old high ruffs, a unique solution was to wear a collar with a wire sewn within its perimeter. This "wired collar" would stay aloft without benefit of starch.

The flat collar pervaded for several decades in various forms, now wider, now narrower, now lacier, now plain, as the political climate of the 1600s dictated. The falling collar, narrowed into two rectangular bands of plain linen, remain in use today as British barristers' collars.

Modern Croat soldiers still wear the cravat.

The next evolutionary jump in neckwear was brought to France in 1660 by Croatian mercenaries employed by the King. They wore broad colorful scarves, neatly knotted at the neck. The French became enamored of it, (as the French are wont to do,) and adopted the style for their own.

Louis XIV in 1667.

They called it, naturally, a Croat, and favored its use in white lace and linen. The pronunciation became Anglified to Cravatte when Charles II brought word of the new fashion back to England after exile.

Method of wearing a Steinkirk.

Most historians draw a neat parallel between the ancient cravat and the modern long tie, and there are notable similarities, but there is more to the story than that! During the Nine Years' War in the late 1600s, there was another refinement of the cravat. The French replaced their broad, flowing, lace cravats with hardier plain cloth that was much longer and narrower, fringed on the ends, for their military dress. It was wrapped once around the neck and tied in a loose knot. The fringes were twisted together and tucked through a buttonhole of their coat, to keep it out of the way. It got its name from the bloodiest infantry battle of the war, from Steenkerque in the Southern Netherlands -- and the Steinkirk cravat, loose, long-ended, with the ends often (but not always) tucked away, remained popular with both sexes until the 1720s.

Then, another change, again brought about by military fashion. Choiseul, Louis XV's Minister of War, changed the troops' steinkirks to stocks. The first stocks were made of stiff horsehair, more like a collar than a cravat; they wrapped around the front of the neck and fastened at the rear with buckles. The reason was as much practical as fashionable; it was in fact meant to serve as neck armor. They were very stiff, reinforced with whalebone, and worn rather tight: so tight, that in the early years the hapless soldiers were so constrained as to render the head nearly immovable, and stooping was impossible.

Detail of Simeon's House of Cards, 1736

 Fortunately, civilians were under no such constraints, and the stock was adopted and worn as a gathered, pleated, or simply folded band of muslin, wrapped around the neck and buckled, tied, or pinned at the rear. Hairstyles played a part in neckwear as well: from 1720 onward, hair (natural or wig) was worn long, brushed back and tied with a black ribbon at the nape of the neck. The hair was often gathered in a black silk "bag wig," which could be pinned to the stock or attached to ribbons that were brought to the front of the stock and tied in a bow. The stock could have an attached ruffle at the front; imitating the look of a cravat.

Detail of Copley's John Hancock, 1765

The youth in the above image wears his hair tied back but un-bagged; his stock is as tall as his collar. By the time of Hancock's portrait, at left, (who, you will note, is wearing his hair in a bag wig,) collars are starting to be folded over the stock. The stock would appear to be a step backward in the development of the modern tie, as it isn't actually tied at all, just wrapped and pinned. It was comfortable and easy to wear, so its use lasted nearly a century. In the waning years of the 1700s, however, the cravat was poised to make a comeback.

And next week, we'll look at that comeback, and what came of it. Stay tuned!

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The Need for Tweed

Chapter 78

This week: a clarification of one of the tenets of dressing well, by way of some handy examples. In a recent installment, I emphasized the importance of "tone matching." The Average Guy who desires to dress like a grownup may have a bit of trouble with this concept, if he is not properly introduced to it.

The Average Guy's  knowledge of "matching clothes" usually comes from the observation of his mother. Women are voracious matchers, as a rule. It has been beaten into girls from a very young age that every article of clothing worn must have at least one precisely-matching color amongst them; including shoes, jewelry, accessories, even cosmetics. There are further rules as to what colors and patterns "should" and "should not" be worn together.

It stands to reason that a young lad, barring any specific male tutelage, will adopt the aforementioned rationale as a universal maxim. Unfortunately, the history of menswear bears out that the concept of "matching" is vastly different among men than it is with the Fairer Sex. The difference is this: women match their clothing to itself. Men match their clothing to their environment. The reasoning is simple: historically, women worked largely in the home, and men worked largely outside. When you are tracking a mobile protein source, you don't want to stand out.

In other words, suits are camouflage. In today's world, where many men don't set foot outside at all, this may be a puzzling concept for some. If you agree with Poirot when he says, "If the outdoors are so good, Hastings, why did they invent indoors?" then you may have particular trouble with the idea.

Fortunately, there is a simple exercise which will make the whole concept crystal clear: we must turn our attention to Scotland, and its national fabric of tweed.

If you have spent any time at all in a secondhand shop hunting for suitable jackets in your quest for adulthood, you have run across tweed jackets. In addition to the grey or tan plain twills and herringbones, you have probably seen plaids and checks that to your untrained eyes looked strangely garish; yellows and blues and reds all together.

In order to make sense of it all, one merely has to look at the colors of the heaths, heathers, and glens of Bonnie Scotland. You may not think that plaids and checks of red and green can be camouflage; but observe!

For instance, take this hillside...

...and compare its rusts, greys, and browns to this example of tweed.

Let's take another example of a Scottish hill, this one in tan and brown and grey-blues:

And again, compare the tones and colors to this dogtooth check.

Let's give another example, this time a foggy blue-grey with lush greens:

And one more:

As you can imagine, this is no mere co-incidence. Wealthy landowners chose "estate tweeds," that were unique to that location. The man of the house would stand upon his balcony, and send his employees out, each with a different bolt of fabric across his shoulders. As they walked away and up the hill, the cloth that most closely matched the colors of the landscape would disappear from view first on the hillside, and that bolt would be chosen as the tweed for that estate.

In other words, "tone matching." Of course, it's impossible to choose your clothes in such a manner today...but the idea of matching your clothes to your environment is a timeless and valid one. This is, in fact, the very essence of the division between "town wear" and "city wear." Cities are dominated by greys, charcoals, and blacks, clean lines, and smooth textures; thus, that became the "city suiting." Likewise, when out of the city, look around you --take a picture if it will help-- and pull those colors into your outfits. Keep track of the changing of the seasons, and continually adjust your colors accordingly.

Of course, you needn't try to combine every hue in one item. Unless you get very lucky with a secondhand estate tweed, your jacket, shirt, and trousers can capture single hues in broad strokes, and your accessories can add the stronger ancillary colors. Autumn is the best season for putting this into practice, due to its abundance of strong, manly, earthy colors.

Into the winter, (and yes, it will be just around the corner,) the colors of your autumn attire should gradually wash into the monochromatic. This isn't to say winter wear need be bleak; the peculiar bright crispness of winter light can be woven into your attire as well.

The hues of spring are in many ways the brighter, more saturated versions of those of autumn. Unlike the gradual transition of autumn-into-winter hues, traditionally, Easter is the time for exploding the color back into your attire all at once, to kick off your spring wardrobe. And summer, as you well know, is the time for getting a little crazy.

Don't be caught up in matching socks to slacks, or ties to shirts, or hats to coats. Be more concerned with matching your adult clothes "outward" to the tones of your environment, and you need never fear being mis-dressed.

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