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Bolo tie

necktie of thin cord usually tipped with with aglets and fastened with a decorative slide

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ785480 ↗
Source-derived summary

A bolo tie (sometimes bola tie or shoestring necktie) is a type of necktie consisting of a piece of cord or braided leather with decorative metal tips (called aiguillettes) and secured with an ornamental clasp or slide.

Popularity

In the United States, bolo ties are widely associated with Western wear and are generally most common in the western areas of the country. Bolo tie slides and tips in silver have been part of Hopi, Navajo, Zuni, and Puebloan silversmithing traditions since the mid-20th century.

The bolo tie was made the official neckwear of Arizona on April 22, 1971, by Governor Jack Williams. New Mexico passed a non-binding measure to designate the bolo as the state's official neckwear in 1987. On March 13, 2007, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed into law that the bolo tie was the state's official tie. Also in 2007, the bolo tie was named the official tie of Texas.

In the United Kingdom, bolo ties are known as bootlace ties. They were popular with 1950s Teddy Boys, who wore them with drape suits.

Bolo ties became fashionable in the 1980s with rockabilly revivalists and new wavers.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bolo tie” is necktie of thin cord usually tipped with with aglets and fastened with a decorative slide. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bolo, necktie and thin, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1971, 1987, 2007—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Bolo, necktie and thin is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “necktie of thin cord usually tipped with with aglets and fastened with a decorative slide” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q785480. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1987 and 2007.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bolo tie”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bolo tie primary sources, Bolo tie archive and Bolo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bolo tie”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bolo tie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.