Necktie

The necktie is a long cloth article of formal neckwear knotted at the throat, resting under a folded shirt collar, and draped down the chest. Though it serves no practical function, it has become one of the most persistent symbols of masculine dress, appearing in 46 works in this collection alone. Its trajectory from military accessory to aristocratic status marker, and later to standardized business attire, makes it a revealing index of social ritual across centuries of Western visual culture. The collection's examples range from portraits of Spanish intellectuals and French nobility to American self-portraits and clerical likenesses, demonstrating how a single sartorial detail could signal profession, class, and cultural aspiration.

The necktie carries layered significance that shifted with each historical transformation. Its origins trace to Croatian mercenaries in the Thirty Years' War, whose knotted neckerchiefs, called cravats from the French 'Croates,' were adopted by Parisian society after arousing interest among the populace. Louis XIV began wearing a lace cravat around 1646 at age seven, establishing it as a marker of French nobility. By the early nineteenth century, the immense skill required to tie elaborate cravats became a mark of elegance and wealth, as documented in the 1818 manual 'Neckclothitania,' the first publication to use 'tie' in association with neckwear. The necktie also acquired darker connotations: in American slang it became a term for a hangman's noose. In the collection, it functions variously as an emblem of the matador's ritual costume, the bourgeois respectability of a Parke Godwin, the ecclesiastical dignity of Rev. John Hughes, and the aristocratic bearing of Philippe of France, Duke of Orleans.

The treatment of the necktie evolved dramatically from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. The Baroque period saw its emergence as the lace cravat, requiring extensive arrangement and signaling courtly refinement. The eighteenth century introduced competing forms: the stock, a leather or muslin band that encouraged military bearing; the solitaire with its matching ribbons; and the resurgent cravat of the macaronis and incroyables, whose exaggerated forms provoked both emulation and satire. The Industrial Revolution demanded more practical neckwear, leading to the long tie's development as something easy to knot and durable enough for the workday. By the 1920s, the modern tie took shape when New York tailor Jesse Langsdorf cut the fabric on the bias in three sections, giving it elasticity and allowing patterns to run diagonally. The collection's works thus capture the necktie at successive stages: as aristocratic lace, as bourgeois standard, and as professional uniform.