The country of Croatia may have given birth to the necktie. Sometime during the 1630s or 1640s, Croatian mercenaries(雇佣军) involved in the Thirty Years’’ War visited King Louis XIV of France. The king was very (47)______ by the soldiers’’ traditional uniforms, which (48)______ soft scarves tied around their necks. By 1650, Louis and his court were wearing Croatian neck scarves instead of the full lace ruffs that had (49)______ been fashionable.
Some sources suggest the Croatians weren’’t the first to wear neckties. One of the oldest examples of a necktie is found on the life-size terracotta soldiers buried with Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti in 210 B.C.. Each solider wears a carefully (50)______ silk cloth around its neck. However, these images are unique, and there is no (51)______ that Chinese men commonly wore neckties.
It seems clear that King Louis XTV (52)______ the necktie. Exiled King Charles II of England brought the French cravat with him when he returned to his throne. Englishmen soon began sporting stylish neck scarves and tied them in as many as 100 different knots. In the early 1800s, English dandy George Bryan epitomized(成为缩影) high fashion and reportedly changed his crisp, white linen cravat three times a day.
Styles of cravats changed and (53)______ over the years. The bow tie developed in the 1840s, and from the 1860s to the 1880s, cravats became narrower like the necktie we know today. In the 1890s, the four-in-hand knot (named for its resemblance to the knot used by a coach driver to control the horses’’ reins) was (54)______ This continues to be one of the most popular knots.
As for why men wear ties, this can only be explained as a whim of (55)______ . In King Louis XTV’’s day, men wore elaborate outfits of brocade and lace. As the centuries wore on, the necktie has become the only remnant of those times. Today’’s ties aren’’t quite so fancy, but they can still (56)______ a splash of color and style to men’’s dress.
Word Bank
A) fashion I) evidence
B) popularized J) casually
C) introduced K) add
D) breed L) burden
E) evolved M) featured
F) impressed N) contributed
G) boomed O) wrapped
H) previously