At the beginning of the 19th century, it was no longer enough simply to tie a cravat. Named styles, illustrated manuals and rules governing form, colour, material and occasion began to appear. The knot acquired a language of its own.

Beau Brummell turned the precisely tied white cravat into one of the signs of a new masculine elegance.

After him, interest in the cravat did not diminish. It increased.

In the early 19th century, an entire culture developed around the tying of the cravat. What had once been transmitted by observation or personal skill began to be written down, named, illustrated and classified.

The cravat acquired something like a grammar of its own.

Neckclothitania, 1818

One of the most intriguing documents of the period appeared in London in 1818 under the title Neckclothitania; or, Tietania, being an Essay on Starchers, by One of the Cloth.

The work is both a record of contemporary fashion and a satire upon it. The well-known illustration associated with George Cruikshank presents a sequence of different ways of shaping neckcloths, including The Oriental, The Mathematical, Napoleon, The American, The Mail Coach, The Irish, The Ball Room, The Hunting and The Horse Collar.

The names themselves reveal how much the world of the cravat had changed. One style evokes geography, another mathematics, a third a famous figure, a vehicle or a particular social setting.

The knot was no longer only a technical means of holding cloth together. It had become a recognisable style.

The Mathematical Tie

Perhaps the most revealing of these names is the Mathematical Tie. The title alone suggests that the ideal cravat was increasingly judged in terms of line, symmetry and proportion. Knot and folds had to correspond to collar, face and neck.

What had been, with Brummell, a matter of personal measure could now be described almost as a system.

That is precisely why Neckclothitania matters. Its irony works only because the subject of satire was real: men took the tying of cravats seriously enough for different forms to be named, recognised and, when necessary, mocked.

Sixteen Lessons on the Cravat

Only nine years later, in Paris in 1827, an even more ambitious book appeared: L’Art de mettre sa cravate de toutes les manières connues et usitées, enseigné et démontré en seize leçons.

The very title shows how much the relationship to the cravat had changed. This was no longer merely a matter of fashion. It was an art that could be taught.

Associated with Émile Marco de Saint-Hilaire, writing under the name Baron Émile de l’Empesé, the work soon circulated in English as The Art of Tying the Cravat. It offered sixteen lessons and thirty-two illustrated forms.

Gordian, Sentimental and Diplomatic

The names become even more inventive: Nœud Gordien, Cravate à l’Orientale, Cravate Sentimentale, Cravate à la Byron, Cravate de Bal, Cravate Mathématique, Cravate à la Gastronome, Cravate Diplomatique, Cravate à la Russe and many others.

Some are serious, others playful, and some deliberately pretentious. Taken together, however, they reveal something important: the cravat had become a means of distinction. The choice of form mattered.

The Knot According to Occasion

The manual does not merely dictate how something should be tied, but also when. For the Cravate de Bal, white is the proper colour; for a hunting cravat, deeper tones are preferred. Some forms require starched cloth, while others must remain soft. Certain knots are intended for specific collars, while in others the ends are either hidden or displayed.

Even the preparation of the cloth becomes part of the rules. The cravat is folded, starched and shaped, and if the knot fails, the process begins again.

The Cravat Speaks Before the Man

Most striking is the confidence these manuals place in the social force of the cravat. In the English edition, it is treated almost as a letter of recommendation: a properly arranged cravat should say something about a man’s taste and standing before he even speaks.

The tone may be knowingly exaggerated, but that exaggeration is revealing. If the cravat had not been a powerful social sign, the joke would not work.

The knot could be elegant or incorrect, relaxed or severe, suitable for a ball or for hunting, romantic, mathematical or diplomatic. A very small space around the neck could suddenly carry a remarkable range of messages.

From Knot to Language

Within a few decades, a major change had taken place. With Beau Brummell, the perfectly tied cravat embodied measure. In Neckclothitania, different forms acquired names. In French and English manuals, they acquired rules and instructions.

The cravat was no longer merely a piece of cloth that one tied. It became a system of choices in which material, colour, method of folding, knot and occasion were linked.

Here we can already recognise something very close to our present relationship with the tie: the way we tie it changes the way we read it.

During the course of the 19th century, forms would simplify again. Industry, new rhythms of life and changing collars would favour neckwear that could be tied more quickly and worn more easily. Out of this rich world of neckcloths, named knots and prescriptions, a form would gradually emerge that leads us very close to the modern tie: the four-in-hand.