Dictionary Definition
cravat n : neckwear worn in a slipknot with long
ends overlapping vertically in front
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
From French cravate, an appellative use of Cravate, from German Krabat (dialectal Krawat), from Serbo-Croat Hrvat. Compare Scots gravat ‘scarf’.Pronunciation
/krəˈvæt/Extensive Definition
The cravat is a neckband, the forerunner of the
modern, tailored necktie. From the end of the
16th
century, the term "band" applied to any long-strip neckcloth
that was not a "ruff. The
ruff, a starched, pleated white linen strip, started its fashion
career earlier in the 16th century as a neckcloth (readily
changeable, to minimize the soiling of a doublet),
as a bib, or as a napkin.
A "band" could indicate either a plain, attached shirt collar
or a detachable "falling band" that draped over the doublet
collar.
History
The modern cravat originated in the 1630s; like most
men's fashions between the 17th century
and World War
I, it was of military origin. In the reign of France's Louis
XIII, Croatian mercenaries were enlisted into
a regiment supporting the King and Cardinal
Richelieu against the Duc de Guise and the Queen Mother,
Marie de
Medici. The traditional Croat military kit aroused Parisian
curiosity about the unusual, picturesque scarves distinctively
knotted at the Croats' necks; the cloths that were used, ranged
from the coarse cloths of enlisted soldiers, to the fine linens and
silks of the officers. The sartorial word "cravat" derives from the
French "cravate," a corrupt French pronunciation of "Croat" — in
Croatian,
"Hrvat".
Considering the interdependence of many European
regions (particularly the French) with the Venetian Empire, which
occupied most of Croatia's coast, and the word's uncertain
philologic origin, the new male neckdress was known as a cravate.
The French readily switched from old-fashioned starched linen ruffs
to the new loose linen and muslin cravates; the military styles
often had broad, laced edges, while a gentleman's cravat could be
of fine lace. As an extreme example of the style, the sculptor
Grinling
Gibbons carved a realistic cravat in white limewood which is
now on display at the
Victoria and Albert Museum.
On returning to England from exile in 1660, Charles
II imported with him the latest new word in fashion: "A
cravatte is another kind of adornment for the neck being nothing
else but a long towel put about the Collar, and so tyed before with
a Bow Knott; this is the original of all such Wearings; but now by
the Art and Inventions of the seamsters, there is so many new ways
of making them, that it would be a task to name, much more to
describe them". (Randle
Holme, Academy of Armory and Blazon, 1688.)
During the wars of Louis
XIV of 1689–1697,
except for court, the flowing cravat was replaced with the more
current and equally military "Steinkirk", named after the Battle
of Steenkerque in 1692. The Steinkirk
was a long, narrow, plain or lightly trimmed neckcloth worn with
military dress, wrapped once about the neck in a loose knot, with
the lace of fringed ends twisted together and tucked out of the way
into a button-hole, either of the coat or the waistcoat. The
steinkirk was popular with men and women until the 1720s.