Explaining the history of necktiesfrom @alextwma

Transcript

So a tie is insanely pointless. It's really strange because it does nothing for you. It doesn't keep you warm or provide any utility, it just sits there. I mean, why do we still put them on? Well, because doing nothing is its whole point. Sort of. You see, tier started in the 1600s with Croatian mercenaries that fought for the French. The Croats wore knotted cloths around their neck with coarse fabric for regular soldiers and fine silk for officers. Even then, the cloth around your neck signaled who you were. The French loved this necktie and named the cloth after tier, la cravat, as a corruption of the word Croat. But here's the thing, before it meant anything, it actually did something. That original cloth was a sweat absorber for the men fighting in it. And centuries better, the Thai's most practical descendant wasn't worn by aristocrats at all. It was coachmen slipknotting their cravats so they wouldn't blow around in the wind while driving a team of worse. That simple, functional knot is the same one most use today, the four in hand tier. Better at this point, the tie had already lost its original function. Over the decades, we saw cyclical variations in tie width from ultra wide to incredibly slim bad and forth. These changes were no longer about utility, but about style. What's left of the tie today is the only part that was never about function to begin with. It's just the part that tells people something about you. A tie serves as a universal signal of formality and effort. It means you had the time this morning to do something stylish yet fundamentally unnecessary. Perhaps that you weren't doing physical work today, and that you know the social rules well enough to follow them. Even though we're seeing a tie regression today with casual dress codes on the rise, the tie is still inseparable from its formal habitat. It does nothing, but that same nothing still says something about you. And if it wasn't for that, it probably would good disappeared a long, long time ago.