Type ‘croatian mercinaries 17 century’ in google, click images and you’ll see a whole lot of dickie bow ties. During the Prussian wars of the 17th century the Croat mercenaries lost their buttons and used a scarf around the neck to hold together the opening of their shirts. years later…many years in fact, when the fashionable french finally caught on to the trend, it became known as ‘the cravat’ French for Croat. I have lots of cravats, I love them and I have done ever since I got to art college and could buy my own things on my own budget…my own things back then being beer, smokes, pool games and clothes from second hand shops!  Somewhere along the way some clever dickie adapted the cravat to form the very first bow tie…it arrived in London, centuries ago it was the latest fashion! you couldn’t go out without your dicky dirt ( cockney rhyme for shirt ) and of course it’s trusty companion the DICKIE BOW TIE. I wore my first dicky bow when I was four, 30 years later, I still wear exactly the same one, The dickie bow has been through many a crisis over the years but there’s no killing it off, part of the reason I’d like to think lies in a text written quite recently by the author Warren St. John and I quote ” perhaps most of all, wearing a bow tie is a way of broadcasting an aggressive lack of concern for what other people think “.