It is interesting to note that cravats go back as far as the 17th century and were worn by Croat soldiers to identify their belonging to a specific military unit.
In those days for the most part, the Croat soldiers who were hardy and handy to have in any army, rented themselves out to pretty much any country who was involved in a war at the time.
The name Cravat is derived from the word Croat which simply means a person from Croatia.
These cravats were certainly the pre cursor to custom ties as we now know them and were worn for a number of reasons.
Firstly being to associate themselves with a units and also to let people know that they were Croat soldiers or mercenaries as they were called because they were basically rented soldiers not fighting for their own land which is essentially the definition of a mercenary.
These cravats were normally the same colour within the same unit, much is the same these days with custom ties, which also encompasses company ties, corporate ties, promotional ties, printed ties, woven ties, sports ties, striped school ties, school ties, bobby knot ties and other custom ties for schools such as matric ties using matric tie designs and pretty much all custom ties for schools sold by tie suppliers or stockists and made by tie makers and tioe manufacturers.
I must add here that when it comes to the terms tie makers or tie manufacturers, we must include corporate scarves and custom scarves and tie makers also manufacture scarves.
Suffice to say that our custom ties are made with a lot more care and quality product than the old cravats back then.
The first cravats were very simple pieces of fabric or strips of fabric actually, ties around the neck and possibly tucked into the shirt or tunic. They could also be left outside the tinic to cover up stains and marks from eating their food- back then, there was no such thing as stain remover!!
They were torn in strips from a bigger piece of dyed fabric and worn by the men in a particular brigade or unit.
One of the benefits of wearing these strips of fabric was also to associate themselves with each other and create a type of brother hood to which they all belonged- those who wore the cravats or strips of dyed fabric.
Much the same these days when it comes to many custom ties such as school ties or club ties or matric ties as these are also worn to identify a specific person as belonging to a certain group.
This tradition has certainly carried on over the years as there is no doubt that one of the biggest functions custom ties perform when it comes to custom ties made for a specific group is to promote unity and belonging within a club, school or organisation.
In a nutshell, the primary function of custom ties made in this way is to promote identity.