What is Croatia’s most lasting contribution to world business?

The necktie.
Hravatis the Croatian word for “Croat” and it’s where we get the word cravat. So Croatia means “tie
land.”
In the seventeenth century, Louis XIII of France kept a regiment of Croatian mercenaries during the
Thirty Years War. Part of their uniform was a broad, brightly colored neck cloth by which they became
known. The flamboyant yet practical style became very popular in Paris, where military dress was much
admired.
During the reign of Louis XIV, the cravat was replaced by a more restrained military steinkirk , tied
about the neck in a loose knot, but it wasn’t until the reintroduction of the flowing cravat by dandies (or
“macaroni” as they were then known) in the late eighteenth century that individual styles of tying them
became popular, the generic name then changing to “tie.”
The relentless march of the tie through the twentieth century has made it the de rigueur dress item for
men in all but the most casual of businesses. Bremer Communication, a U.S. image consultancy, has
divided the now ubiquitous “business casual” into three levels: basic, standard, and executive. Only at the
basic level is a tie not required, and they recommend that this is best restricted to “those days when you
have little customer contact or are taking part in an informal activity.”
In the late 1990s two researchers at Cambridge University used mathematical modeling to discover that
it is topologically possible to tie eighty-five different knots with a conventional tie. They found that, in
addition to the four well-known knots, six other knots produced aesthetically pleasing results.