What’s the deal with Bowties?
What’s the Deal With Bowties?
The most popular video in the history of YouTube prominently features Korean pop singer/dancer PSY bouncing around in a bowtie. Bet you didn’t notice until now. So, what’s the deal with bowties?
You’ve wondered because you see them (slowly?) coming back into mainstream, yet bowties still carry an air of insecurity to most. It’s what you don’t know that scares you: Did you know that the bowtie is tied with a “shoelace know” – now try tying one, that’s a whole different adventure. Did you know that a bowtie is made out of Silk, Cotton, and even Wool; some might add Polyester to that list but we say “YUCK”- keep to the finer materials. For all the things you don’t know about bowties, let’s cover some basics:
Bowties, preceding ties as we use them today, originally came in sizes much like neck-collar sizes- eventually evolving into what we know today as the “one size fits all”- a model which has become the norm to standardize and mitigate production costs for mass market. You might find that suits have followed a similar evolution transforming from bespoke to “off the peg” – one might ponder that with the bespoke suit making a strong comeback, if bowties might be emerging as the next trend?
Regardless of where it’s going, we know quite a lot about where it came from: flourishing in 18th and 19th centuries, the bowtie originated during the Prussian wars some 200 years prior, serving the functional purpose of holding together the opening on the shirts of merchants. A little piece of history: “cravat” is derived from the French for “Croat” as in: one coming from Croatia, where many of these merchants wearing this “tie” to hold their shirts together were coming from.
More commonly seen at after-work affairs like the dinner party than at work, the bowtie still finds itself associated – perhaps correctly- with Architects, Professors, Bankers, and the occasional brave Lawyer. While to some it communicates non-conformance to the norm, to others it speaks of traditionalism: a dichotomy in itself; those who want to communicate traditionalism thus despair at the idea of a pre-tied bowtie: a faux pas in fashion, outside of the school play.
Requiring the same technical expertise to tie as it does being unapologetic to wear to the office, bowties are definitely once again on the rise. Consider it as something of a statement for the future or a trip back to the past, a classy bowtie will nonetheless make you stand out in a crowd. And you never know, like many who are converting to the look, you too may become addicted to adding to your bowtie collection for years to come.
