Kruzlifix's History of the Bow Tie

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During my residency (1980-86) at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore /USA, I did not only learn things about Orthopedics. This was the staff in orthopedics in 1955 when I was born. As you can note, only one out of the 8 physicians was not wearing a bow tie.
I was also trained in wearing appropriate attire, especially bow ties. Here I am on route to an official event, the bowtie is unfortunately sligthly out of focus.
One day Chuck Silberstein brought me an article from the 1976 Washington magazin about how to make your own bow ties. I started my own cottage factory. Luckily part of my rotations I spent in a hospital without active emergency departement.
That way I had enough time during call to build up my bow tie collection. Of course, at first I had a hard time finding the right models for my creation.
But soon I had no problems finding collectors for my designs. This is again Dr. Silberstein wearing my first handmade bowtie.
I was curious about the origin of the bowtie. My research brought me to Louis 14 .
Among his professional soldiers he also employed a batallion fo Croatian soldiers. All those soldiers were easily recognized by wearing a nice looking scarf around their neck. This was the birth of the Cravat.
This was of course a most wellcome improvement for the orthopedic surgeons who had always to wear their humongeous collars.
It was really a great releave for them to finally be able to operate with the practical bow ties.
Another fashion appeared shortly after the battle of Steinkerk in 1692. There, the French soldiers were surprised by the english army in the dawn and they had barely time to stick their twisted scarfs into the trenchcoats.
Nowadays this tradition is still kept alive during some battles in the cast room by our junior collegues.
One can find traces of bow ties in the world literature like for instance Balzac, who thought the bow tie had not only a function as fashionable accessoire but was also an important factor for the health status of the owner.
This was probably the reason why this young lady did not want to take her bow tie off when Manet took her portrait.
At the beginning of the 20th century there were basically 2 types of ties, the long neck tie and one short bow tie. Here we see a foto of William Davidson and Bill Harley the two founders of a famous motorcycle brand after a successful fishing trip.
In honor of the merits for modern Orthopedics and especially for the treatment of open tibia shaft fractures I used the abbreviation ORIF (Open Reduction Internal Fixation) as name for the licence plate on my Harley-Davidson.
Frank Sinatra popularized the bow tie during the 40ies and 50ies.
Today if one reads about the bow tie in books on how to dress one can find that a person in a bow tie has the air of not being trustworthy or even of being a thief.
The only positve aspect of wearing a bow is that bow ties are able to smooth the image of a person who seems to be otherwise a tough guy. And at the end: There is another nice bow tie page on the net! Please go and visit!