The bow tie is the most misunderstood object a man can put around his neck. People think it signals whimsy, or eccentricity, or a professor who wants you to know he is a professor. What it actually signals, when it is done right, is that you tie your own and you do not care whether the world approves. There is no accessory that separates the men from the boys quite so cleanly, because a real bow tie cannot be faked. You either learned, or you clipped on a plastic imposter, and everyone can tell.
Here is where it came from, who makes the best, and how to stop being one of the men who cannot tie one.
It started on a battlefield
The story begins, of all places, with Croatian mercenaries in the seventeenth century. During the Thirty Years' War, Croatian soldiers fighting for France wore knotted cloths around their necks, plain fabric for the foot soldiers, finer silk and muslin for the officers, so the neckcloth doubled as a mark of rank. The practical purpose was humble, holding the top of the shirt closed, and there is a romantic version too, that wives and sweethearts tied the cloth around a soldier's neck as a token of love and safe return.
When these soldiers turned up in Paris around 1630, the French court took one look and was captivated. King Louis XIII and later, decisively, the young Louis XIV adopted the style, and the French named it after the men who brought it. Worn "a la Croate," in the Croatian way, the word became cravate, and from cravate we get cravat. Louis XIV loved it so much he appointed a royal cravat-maker to the court and did away with the stiff collars of the old fashion. The neckcloth had gone from the battlefield to the throne room in a generation.
From that single root grew everything. The flowing cravat dominated the eighteenth century, Beau Brummell turned the knot into an art form in Regency London, and somewhere in the transition the cloth split into the two forms we know now, the long four-in-hand necktie and the bow tie. By the mid-nineteenth century the bow tie as we would recognize it had arrived, cloth instead of the old voluminous cravat, and it became a fixture of formal full dress. Lincoln wore one. So did generations of doctors, professors, and lawyers, which is where the bookish association comes from. But strip away the stereotype and you find something older and better: the direct descendant of a soldier's knot, worn by kings.
Who makes the best
There is a difference between a bow tie and a great bow tie, and you feel it the moment you tie one. Cheap ones are stiff, thin, and lifeless, and they produce a flat, mean little bow. Great ones are cut from heavy woven silk with enough body to sit plump and enough softness to throw a natural dimple every time. Here is where the real ones come from.
Le Noeud Papillon of Sydney is, by wide agreement among the people who actually care, the finest dedicated bow tie maker in the world. This is the rare house that makes almost nothing but bow ties, by hand, from the best Italian silks and Japanese Yuzen silks, in limited runs. Their black self-tie, the Majestic, is spoken of the way people speak of a great watch, and it has earned that reputation by sitting fuller and dimpling better than anything else on the market. If you are going to own one serious bow tie in your life, this is where I would send you, and the owner will cut you a bespoke one to suit your face if the standard size is wrong for you.
Drake's of London is the answer for the classic black-tie essential done impeccably. Their self-tie batwing and butterfly bows in faille and grosgrain silk are handmade in London and represent the English tailoring sensibility at its most correct. For a black bow tie to wear with a dinner jacket, done properly and built to last, Drake's is faultless.
Buy self-tie, always. The whole point is that you tied it.
The rule that matters more than the label: a self-tie bow, in a fixed length matched to your neck, is the only version a grown man should own for a formal occasion, because the pre-tied and the clip-on announce themselves instantly and undo everything the bow tie is supposed to say about you. A slightly imperfect knot you tied yourself beats a flawless one that came pre-assembled, every time.
How to tie it
Now the part that stops most men. Tying a bow tie feels impossible for about twenty minutes and then, all at once, becomes as automatic as tying your shoes, because it is, in fact, essentially the same knot you use on your shoes, just performed under your chin and, frustratingly, in reverse. The only way through is to do it in front of a mirror until your hands learn it, and then to stop using the mirror.
Here is a clear tutorial to follow along with.
How to tie a bow tie · a short tutorial
A few things the videos never tell you that make it click faster. Start with one end hanging a couple of inches longer than the other, and keep track of which is which, because that length difference is what makes the finished bow even front to back. Tie it a little loose at first, form the knot, then gently snug it. And do not chase perfection on the first pass. A bow tie is supposed to look hand-tied, a touch asymmetrical, alive. The slightly imperfect knot is the tell that you did it yourself, and that is the entire point.
You will know you have truly mastered it the day you can tie one without the mirror, and the day you can tie one around someone else's neck. Until then, practice with one around your collar while you watch television. It will be ugly for a week. Then it will be yours forever.
Dress for yourself, not the room. And tie your own bow, because the room can always tell.
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