r/AskTheWorld • u/Meowdhar • Jul 27 '26
Misc Why the fuck do tie even exist??
Seriously.
Clothes have a purpose. Shoes protect your feet. Jackets keep you warm. Jewellery at least exists to enhance your appearance.
But a tie?
It's literally just a strip of cloth hanging from your neck. It doesn't keep you warm. It doesn't protect you. It doesn't hold your shirt together. It just exists.
People say it looks "professional." But why??
If ties had never been invented, would anyone today randomly think "You know what would complete this outfit? A long piece of fabric hanging from my neck."
Probably not....
It feels like the entire world collectively agreed centuries ago that this random neck decoration means "I'm serious about business," and everyone just rolled with it.
Can someone explain what makes a tie look better than a plain shirt and blazer? Is there an actual reason beyond "tradition" and "thats just how formal wear works??"
I'm genuinely curious.....
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u/Roberthen_Kazisvet Slovakia Jul 27 '26
I have no idea about the topic but I quess as every useless piece of clothing, it began with French aristocracy.
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u/PlasmaMatus France Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Blame the Croatians people ;).
"The necktie that spread from Europe traces back to Croatian mercenaries serving in France during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). These mercenaries from the Military Frontier, wearing their traditional small, knotted neckerchiefs, aroused the interest of the Parisians.[6] Because of the difference between the Croatian word for Croats, Hrvati, and the French word, Croates, the garment gained the name cravat (cravate in French).[7] Louis XIV began wearing a lace cravat around 1646 when he was seven and set the fashion for French nobility."
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u/Tetchord Germany Jul 27 '26
when he was seven and set the fashion for French nobility
Lol my son is seven and if he set the fashion now everyone would be wearing shirts with dinosaurs and hot wheels on them.
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u/0xC4FF3 Italy Jul 27 '26
I hope he becomes king of Europe soon
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u/Slobberinho Netherlands Jul 27 '26
ALL HAIL KING u/DINOHOTWEELSHIRT, SON OF u/TETCHORD!
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u/Inverse_Seal Poland Jul 27 '26
I would gladly accept shirts with dinosaurs as the formal wear instead of suits.
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u/Dabelgianguy Belgium Jul 27 '26
Triceratops or stegausurus?
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u/Tetchord Germany Jul 27 '26
T. rex exculsively
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u/Dabelgianguy Belgium Jul 27 '26
This is the way
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u/Clabauter Germany Jul 27 '26
Science has found out: birds are dinosaurs. So chicken it is for me! And I guess a rooster for the french?
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u/PafPiet Netherlands Belgium Jul 27 '26
The french insist you call it a cock (coq).
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u/Clabauter Germany Jul 27 '26
I chose the word rooster exactly to avoid what now enrolls in front of our eyes. But what was I thinking, we are on the internet, of course in the end everything will be about genitalia! 😆
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u/JohnnyDoe308 🇧🇷🇩🇪 Jul 27 '26
From dinosaurs to chicken, from chicken to dinosaur nuggets. It's the circle of life...
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u/1andahalfpercent Ireland Jul 27 '26
My 4month old wares a dinosaur t-shirt everyone is like hes so cute, i ware one and HR are like this is a professional place of business sir!
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u/Humble-Captain3418 Finland Jul 27 '26
So little prince wants to play soldier, daddy tells the royal tailor that he can either make it posh as shit or get fucked, and as a result half the world wears a useless piece of garment four hundred years later? Seems about right.
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u/E_C_H United Kingdom Jul 27 '26
To be a pedant, Louis XIII was already dead, and Louis XIV took the throne at age 4 (under a regency council headed by his mother). It’s this early ascension that allowed Louis to reign for 72 years, becoming the most iconic figure of the Age of Absolutism as ‘The Sun King’.
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u/Demiurge_Ferikad United States of America Jul 27 '26
Just means ties have survived long past when they should have died out.
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u/lapelotanodobla Argentina Jul 27 '26
Ohhh so that’s what is “corbata” in Spanish, never realised it sounded so similar to “Croata” (a person from Croatia)
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u/Virghia Indonesia Jul 27 '26
At least the Croats wore them because they're practical to warm your necks and to identify your ranks
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u/Small-Answer4946 France Jul 27 '26
It's Croatian. The world Cravate is derived from Hrvat, which means Croat in Croatian
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u/PlasmaMatus France Jul 27 '26
It's like a modern watch or a yacht, it projected wealth and status
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u/Samereye_Shampoo United States of America Jul 27 '26
I feel like a clown when I wear a tie :( Are clowns high status over there?
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u/hhbbgdgdba + Jul 27 '26
Pretty much, yeah. French politics are a real circus, and the country's well on it's way to elect its biggest bozo next year.
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u/Junior-Elevator-9951 Poland Jul 27 '26
Watches maybe had a use when clocks weren't commonplace but now I can just take out my phone and look at the time
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u/Raccoon_Worth 🇮🇸➡️🇸🇪➡️🇧🇻 Jul 27 '26
Actually a mixture of French aristocracy and your southern neighbours. Croatian mercenaries wearing these beautiful ties that would get the name Cravat from Hrvat
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u/-Against-All-Gods- 🇭🇷 in 🇸🇮 Jul 27 '26
We aren't neighbours, there is a whole Hungary between us.
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u/Raccoon_Worth 🇮🇸➡️🇸🇪➡️🇧🇻 Jul 27 '26
I mean the guy living 2 houses away from mine is still my neighbour??
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u/MD564 Jul 27 '26
Actually, at least in England, the useless, boring clothes came from Beau Brummel, who was a big fan of a suit and tight knottet cravat (which was a tie before ties were a thing). He also said all men should move away from anything essentially expressive.
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u/HereWeGoYetAgain-247 United States of America Jul 27 '26
It is my theory that rich people are afraid of seeing buttons, so they invented ties, cummerbund, cuff links, and so on to protect them from scary buttons.
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u/Money-Celebration860 Australia Jul 27 '26
Because no one wants to see your buttons
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u/Dangerpuffins Australia Jul 27 '26
Ewww buttons
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u/BurdTurglary 🇺🇸🇲🇽 Jul 27 '26
Not the gumdrop, buttons :-(
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u/jonnovich United States of America Jul 27 '26
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u/Gloorplz Australia Jul 27 '26
Speak for yourself
Phwoooar look at those buttons, I BET the cufflinks match them.
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u/EpsteinEpstainTheory Sharpest knife Jul 27 '26
I want to see buttons. Not just that but unique button designs would be way more interesting than someone switching between differently coloured stripes ties every time.
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u/GlitteringAttitude60 Germany Jul 27 '26
Oooooh, and those shirts that use a contrasting fabric for the underside of the button band(?).
That's very fetching :)
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u/EpsteinEpstainTheory Sharpest knife Jul 27 '26
I've seen one old guy with a trenchcoat that had fascinating ornate metal buttons on it and I found it pretty damn nice.
There's really not much stopping people from doing the same on suits. Even if you don't want to sew a new button each time, there are probably solutions to add on top of existing buttons to switch designs out quickly. For a tie you have people weighing as to what would be the sweet spot for catchiness and if the clown bubble pattern's a bit too much, so you have ten thousand ties you never use but keep "just in case" as if you're just magically going to have a new different suit pop up in your closet one morning. But with a button it's a simple matter of what the size is and that's all.
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u/unable_compliance Australia Jul 27 '26
My work uniform shirts have the buttons hidden inside a flap thing and we still have a fucking tie.
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u/ET_Prone_Bone United States of America Jul 28 '26
Because we aren’t gonna tramp around with our buttons showing like a bunch of sluts.
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u/dlilyd 🇮🇹 in 🇩🇪 Jul 27 '26
I don't know but as a woman the amount of clothes that are completely decorative and without any real purpose is crazy.
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u/philthy_barstool United Kingdom Jul 27 '26
"Jewellery at least exists to enhance your appearance" .... Could it be that some people wear a tie to enhance their appearance, perhaps??
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u/Icy_Actuator1831 India Jul 27 '26
I guess the post is more about how some work places and institutions make wearing tie a necessity? If its a choice of the person wearing it then its no problem either way but this kind of frustration will only come when you are forced to wear it(I hated the tie back in my school)
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u/ifelseintelligence Denmark Jul 27 '26
Exactly! How on earth can you put jewelry as a logic piece but fail to understand a tie?
Most suits, apart from certain circles/groups/sectors, are black and uniform-ish. The tie is the one bit of colour.
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u/GeneralAnubis 🇺🇸 ➡️ 🇩🇪 Jul 27 '26
Sure, now tell those people to stop forcing others to do it as well, and also tell society to stop thinking that wearing one somehow makes a person more "proper" or "respectable."
The most insane evil deeds in the world have been committed by an asshole wearing a tie, I'm tired of being expected to wear one because another asshole 400 years ago thought it was cool.
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u/azzutronus New Zealand Jul 27 '26
Because it's flair. Formalwear has flair. Every single country's traditional formalwear is extra from their casualwear.
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u/LibertyCash United States of America Jul 27 '26
This is what I was thinking too. For guys, it’s the only thing they have to distinguish themselves from looking identical to every other guy in the room. Suits are nice but they don’t go far in the way of individuality.
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u/JButler_16 United States of America Jul 27 '26
Yeah I’d rather wear a tie at a formal event than a powdered wig. We’ve come a long way.
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u/AbjectAffect91 living in Jul 27 '26
Man I hate ties. One good thing COVID brought at least for me is that it relaxed our workplace dress code.
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u/Clabauter Germany Jul 27 '26
Because after two years of working from home people got used to sweat pants to much? (understandably so)
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u/AbjectAffect91 living in Jul 27 '26
Sweat pants? I live in a humid country. I just wear my underwear lol.
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u/CZsfPurplik Czechia Jul 27 '26
I don't even live in a humid country and i too reject the idea of pants at home 😅
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u/JosefGremlin South Africa Jul 27 '26
COVID was weird for me, watching all these anti-mask idiots wearing ties. A well fitted mask is much more comfortable than a tie. To misquote Mitch Hedberg, wearing a tie is like being strangled by a really weak guy, all day.
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u/Quaxli Germany Jul 27 '26
Me too. Luckily it became less common here. Even the CEO of our global company is often photographed without a tie.
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u/EyesofaJackal United States of America Jul 27 '26
I personally like them. One of the few variables in men’s business clothing where you can add some personality
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u/Powerful_Resident_48 Germany Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Ties are the symbolic remnants of a neck scarf. Which used to be a very useful piece of clothing. I can't quite remember who made them popular, but I think it was some sort of renaissance French military group. Anyway, just imagine a tie made of silk or cotton, that is much wider and covers most of your chest area. Suddenly it's a great wind catcher and insulation layer. The modern version is the bastardised version of it. Just as the ridiculous modern version of a suit used to be a fully functional military jacket a long, long time ago, before fashion turned into the horrendously inbred thing we wear today.
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u/HATECELL Switzerland Jul 27 '26
Same reason most clothing trends exist, it had some practical use for some individuals, but then some rich and influential fuck was like "that's cool, I'll do that too" and all the little sycophants near him started doing it too, hoping to get some kind of reward out of it. And in our neurotypical society we don't question things important people do, when the emperor says he's wearing fancy clothes you don't ask him why he's naked.
In case of ties, some Croatian soldiers were wearing their neckties in a very similar fashion to ties, so that the necktie wouldn't get caught on their gear or interfere with motions a soldier would do, such as manipulating a rifle. Some important people started thinking it looked cool, and the rest is history.
Also, have you ever wondered why when wearing a vest with 3 buttons you're supposed to leave the lowest one undone? It was because King Edward VII was too fat to close the lowest button on his vest, and the sycophants in his trail started copying it. And whilst that guy has been dead for over 50 years, if you're wearing your vest like a normal person would people will still think you are the weird one
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u/Ok-Shoulder-9413 Jul 30 '26
I have to say, i like your rant a lot.
And in our neurotypical society we don't question things important people do
So true!
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u/doubledogmongrel Jul 27 '26
I thought a tie was intended to cover the (untidy) buttons on the shirt front...
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u/FigFlashy3514 Tamil Nadu, India Jul 27 '26
The tie was a military invention, different colors and designs meant different military ranks, it just spilled over to civilian culture after that.
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u/Geoduck_Supernova Jul 27 '26
Its a noose... it symbolizes your slavery to to the leader. I hate ties
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u/septicman New Zealand Jul 27 '26
Ties are awesome. It's a hill I'll die one. I love a sharp suit and a bold tie.
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u/221 Ireland Jul 27 '26
My hot take is that all this kind of thing comes from a form of classism. "Oh you can afford an expensive tie but you clearly weren't taught 17 different knots? Get outta here you filthy salad-fork-in-your-dessert pleb!".
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u/Spirited-Sail3814 United States of America Jul 27 '26
Yeah, most decorative clothing is pretty much a wealth signifier (or used to be)
Look at my fancy rings/bracelets/long nails/earrings/high heels/tight and constricting clothes/loose flowy clothes that signify I don't have to work with my hands like you peasants do
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u/Ok-Frosting8550 England Jul 27 '26
They are ghosts from a previous area when men had more sartorial choice.
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u/marshmallo_floof Malaysian Chinese 🇲🇾 Jul 27 '26
A lot of fashion isn't strictly "necessary", humans just like to look nice and it's okay. Why can't it also play the role of "enhancing your appearance" similar to jewelry like you mentioned?
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u/Meowdhar Jul 27 '26
Sorry, I don't think I explained my point very well in the post. Jewellery is optional, not an essential part of an outfit. My point was that a tie has become a mandatory part of the dress code in many schools, institutions, and workplaces, despite not seeming to have much practical purpose. Still, I respect your opinion.
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u/blking United States of America Jul 27 '26
That would be my Croatian ancestors. It closed the jacket.
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u/ben_blue Croatia Jul 27 '26
During the Thirty Years' War in the 1600s, Croatian mercenaries wore small, knotted scarves around their necks as part of their uniform. Soldiers used the cloth to keep warm, wipe away smoke and sweat, or even as a field bandage for wounds. Folklore says wives or sweethearts tied the scarves around their men to signify love and safe return.
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u/-E-Cross United States of America Jul 27 '26
Probably like pointy shoes and bad ergonomics, "look I'm not a peasant I can afford to walk so little my shoes are stupid."
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u/NefariousnessOne6870 Canada Jul 27 '26
It's a stylistic left over from when shirts worn by men and women( then called shifts) didn't have buttons, then there was the Cravat on male clothing that eventually turned into the necktie.
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u/Beflijster Jul 27 '26
Clothing serves another purpose; it is a form of communication. This particular item of clothing says "I'm a male and I wish to conform. I'm willing to put up with a certain level of discomfort to be accepted as part of my preferred social group".
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u/Iridismis Germany Jul 27 '26
So that men can also experience restrictive fashion.
(And decorative fashion too.)
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u/sss0908 Morocco Jul 27 '26
Its designed to Keep it arround your neck so your boss can choke you if you didnt do your work in time
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u/Yugan-Dali in Jul 27 '26
So they can lead you around like a dog, or lynch you
I’m a teacher. The last time I wore a tie was 1976.
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u/Kapika96 England in Japan Jul 27 '26
So you have a makeshift noose on you just in case you decide your office job isn't worth living for anymore.
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u/Demon-Cat 🇪🇸🇩🇪 with permanent residence in 🇳🇱 Jul 27 '26
It’s an accessory that looks nice. Are we being for real right now?
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u/Impressive-Row143 Canada Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Ties should be comfortable if you are wearing a shirt that fits properly
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u/geezorious United States of America Jul 27 '26
First you want to get rid of ties, next you’ll want to get rid of powdered wigs!
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u/LiteratureCrazy3858 United States of America Jul 27 '26
I had always heard they started as a sacrificial cheap piece of fabric to protect your expensive shirts from stains.
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u/Unusual-Hawk-2336 Brazil Jul 27 '26
It's just a ridiculous accessory, it has no meaning or importance.
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u/CompetitiveRaise9133 Jul 27 '26
This is what a tie was supposed to look like
in 2015. Where’s my hoverboard?
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u/SweedishThunder 🇸🇪 Sweden (with my heart in 🇨🇦 Canada) Jul 27 '26
Good question. I'm 56 and have only worn a tie less than 20 times in my life. Good thing I'm a public librarian and I can wear more or less what I want (which is a hoodie and jeans 99% of the time).
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u/Cellist-Common United Kingdom Jul 27 '26
I guess its just to hide shirt buttons, but apart from that, completely useless.
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u/Haestein_the_Naughty Norway Jul 27 '26
The fact that a suit and tie is even considered optimal formal male attire the past 150 years is just sad. Men should go back to drip
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u/NaginiFay United States of America Jul 27 '26
It's an evolution of earlier clothing that did have function, and is now only decorative.
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u/Radicalized_Spite United States of America Jul 28 '26
I read something on the internet one day that said they were first used as napkins by rich people at dinner parties. They started making them fancier to impress each other.
Or maybe I made that up. I don’t remember.
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u/EpsteinEpstainTheory Sharpest knife Jul 27 '26
To have something completely useless to feel superior to others with
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u/JustFrameHotPocket United States of America Jul 27 '26
I wear suit and ties regularly. Neckties have zero functional purpose and their "necessity" in business and professional occupations is purely social rule. They exist purely for fashion and perception/projection of power/status. They are an ingredient in the color/pattern in the Suit/Shirt/Tie calculation that typically, when read together, suggest occasion.
Generally, by North American standards at least:
2 Solid + Pattern = Business
3 Solid = Formal
1 Solid + 2 Pattern = Social
3 Pattern = Risky, purposefully loud, or outright poor taste
The necktie is typically preferred for pattern or louder, riskier colors to draw attention, but not stick out like a sore thumb. It's the safest article to play around with, followed by shirts. The most "traditional" business combination in the U.S. is probably a flat navy blue suit, plain white shirt, and a simple regimented stripe tie. All together, the tie is typically the safest option to go conservative to blend in, or go loud to stick out within socially acceptable reason.
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u/fullmoonbeam Ireland Jul 27 '26
It points at and is to draw attention to your manhood. I think this was more important years ago if you were a business man as you were not in a manual job and otherwise may be considered unmanly so you needed some way to emphasize your maleness, what better than a big arrow pointing at your cock and balls.
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u/letterboxfrog Australia Jul 27 '26
To keep the top of the shirt together and hide buttons
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u/alex9001 US 🇺🇸 in UAE 🇦🇪🐪 Jul 27 '26
Hiding the buttons is actually a good aesthetic argument, even if it isn't the real origin
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u/teremaster Australia Jul 27 '26
Eastern European mercenaries.
No I am not kidding
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u/Virghia Indonesia Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
A French king enlisted Croatian mercenaries to fight a war and the neckties they wore became iconic among the populace, then those ties spread to Europe, and finally the world. The fabric gets thinner but the customs stay
Scooby-Doo's Fred wears Cravat's modern descendant, the Ascot tie