So many things that I thought were originally French weren't. One of these is the origins of the cravat, or the tie. Here's one version of the story: when Napoleon inspected his troops, he thought the smartest-looking ones were the ones from Croatia, the ones with the ties; in fact, the word "croata" can be found as the root in a number of languages for tie or cravat. Napoleon thus began to require cravats of all his men. [Pictured: the stained-glass dome is in a shopping area under which one can buy $500 silk ties; also pictured is a dude in traditional Croatian costume wearing the red cravat.] So you can blame Napoleon for those nooses you men like so much....
4 comments:
The Rodin Museum was the second most romantic (and the most Rodintic) place Karla and I visited. First, alas, was Sainte Chappelle... you'll just have to take my word for it until your next vacance au Paris.
I remember the romantic story associated with Sainte Chappelle, but regrettably I couldn't see the place AGAIN!
Thanks, Thom, for always having to do the lalaclan stuff; hopefully, we're nearly done with switching over our email addresses! :)
Wouldn't it be fun for you and Karla and Ken and me to go to Paris together one day?!
Ok... so I don't if I told you this, but my best friend in lab in grad school was Croatian. So I've always wanted to go there. He even tried to teach me Croatian one summer.
I did learn from him that Croatian's are so proud of inviting the tie. He told me about it on multiple occasions.
Hopefully you advertising this fact on your blog won't cause all the men who hate to wear ties to rise up together against the Croatians!
Actually, I do remember that, Autumn, and also I've seen a picture of him, and he's gorgeous! Which gets me to another gorgeous-Croatian-man comment: remember the Croatian guy on ER? He was great-looking too; in general, as I've walked around Zagreb, they are a physically beautiful bunch of people. Apparently, at one point, more supermodels came from Croatia than from any other place. End of shallow comment about people's looks. :)
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