Necktie

A necktie (usually just called a tie) is a piece of material worn around the neck. The modern necktie's original name was the four-in-hand tie. The modern necktie, along with the ascot and the bowtie, are all descended from the cravat. They are mainly worn by men, though they are sometimes worn by women, either as fashionable dress wear or as part of a uniform.

Ties as signs of membership

The use of coloured and patterned ties to indicate the wearer's membership of a club, military regiment, school, etc., goes back no further than late-nineteenth century England. The first definite occurrence is in 1880, when Exeter College, Oxford rowers took the College-colour ribbons from their straw boaters and wore them as neckties (tied four-in-hand). They went on to order a proper set of ties in the same colours, thus creating the first example of a College tie.

Related Topics:
England - Exeter College, Oxford - Rowers - Straw boaters - Four-in-hand

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It didn't take long for other colleges, as well as schools, universities, and clubs to follow suit. At about the same time, the British military moved from dressing in bright and distinctive colours to wearing more subdued, discrete, and practical uniforms. They retained the old uniforms for dress occasions, but also continued to use their regimental colours and emblems on embroidered blazer badges and ties.

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The most common pattern for such ties was and remains diagonal stripes in alternating colours (running down the tie from the left in the U.K. and most of Europe, rather than the U.S. preference for stripes running down from the right); the alternative is either a single emblem or crest placed centrally and designed to appear where a tiepin would normally be, or a repeated pattern of such motifs. Sometimes both types are used by an organisation, either simply to offer a choice or to indicate a distinction between types or levels of membership. Occasionally a hybrid is used, in which alternating stripes of colour are overlaid by a pattern of repeated motifs.

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Many British schools use variations on their basic tie to indicate the age or house of the wearer or status (e.g., prefect), or to show that the wearer has represented his or her school competitively (especially at sports). A different design is usually worn by Old Boys or Girls (alumni).

Related Topics:
House - Prefect - Alumni

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