I hate ties. I never understood them. What is the meaning of tying a noose around your own neck every morning before heading to the office for work? Is this some sort of sick, depressing symbolism? So I decided to do some digging into the history of the necktie. Here is what I found.
The first version of the necktie found in history actually dates all the way back to 210 B.C. China's first emperor, Emperor QinShihuang, was buried with the likenesses of 7,500 of his best warriors, after being persuaded not to have the soldiers actually buried with him. You may have heard of this terracotta army. If not, here is a link to a site all about it. At any rate, each of these soldiers were modeled and painted in intricate, life-size detail, right down to their neckties. There is no other record of Chinese wearing neckties in that time period, and it is believed that the emperor bestowed them as a symbol of ultimate honor on these soldiers chosen to guard his tomb until the end of time... well, at least have a statue of themselves standing there anyways. Not a bad deal for a silk scarf, I guess.
Neckties next popped up again in 113 A.D., when the Roman Emperor Trajan erects a monument to commemorate his army's victory over the Dacians. The monument is known as Trajan's Column, and here is a link to more information on it, for those of you who know nothing about history and have never heard of this one either. (Alright, in all fairness, this one isn't really well known. But still, shame on you for not knowing anything about the terracotta army.) On this 100-foot tall column are detailed depictions of over 2,000 soldiers, once again all wearing neckties. It was not common practice for Roman soldiers to sport neckware, so again it is believed that these legionnaires are depicted wearing ties as a symbol of honor for their skill in battle.
We don't see any neckties around again until about 1660. A Croatian regiment was visiting Paris for a celebration of a hard fought military victory over Turkey, and the soldiers were presented as heroes before King Louis XIV. The French king immediately noticed the colorful handkerchiefs the soldiers wore around their necks as a sign of honor, and he immediately thought it would be a great idea to cheapen their symbol of military superiority by spreading it all over the French courts as the latest fashion. This of course resulted in it spreading throughout all the courts of Europe, and then soon anyone wishing to so much as pretend that they were well-to-do had to tie something around their neck in order to do so, and somehow the unfortunate tradition stuck.
But as if France wasn't enough to blame for this insidious fashion requirement, in the 1920's a shrewd fashion designer out of Paris by the name of Jean Patou came up with an even more sinister ploy - the designer tie. Using women's clothing patterns and designs derived from the latest art movements, he created an extraordinarily expensive line of ties targeted at women. And the trick worked. Women bought the ties like mad for their significant male counterparts, and the designer tie industry took off. In fact, today 80 percent of ties are bought by women. Don't believe me? Ask any guy how many ties he has, and how many of those he actually bought for himself.
Fashion historians have long been predicting the demise of the necktie, yet it seems to only gain popularity to the point of being a requirement in many circumstances. Why is this? Personally, I blame company CEOs. They are the Kings and Emperors of our modern business world. An unfortunate condition indeed, given the fact that most CEOs are idiots. So since the CEOs wear neckties, all the managers wear neckties. And since all the managers wear neckties, all the supervisors wear neckties. And of course, since all the supervisors wear neckties, all the underlings wear neckties. So when that underling gets promoted to supervisor, then manager, then becomes the new company CEO, he's still wearing the blasted thing. Why? Just because that's the way it has always been done, and typically by the time an employee makes it as high as CEO, any inkling of free thinking has long since been replaced with conformity, so the necktie stays and everyone under him continues to wear them as well, and the cycle continues. If only a couple of major CEOs were struck by lightning and realized, "hey, why do I bother tying this ridiculous thing around my neck every morning when it's uncomfortable and has no useful function? I think I'll stop wearing them." The affects would cascade down the business model, and soon we would be tie free, and there would be no more accidental deaths due to ties getting caught in industrial shredders. Talk about your occupational hazard.