Jan 20, 2010

JT and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Cravats!


Here's a look at Mr. Thorton's lovely cravat collection.
(I like the word "cravat."  I feel smart when I say it.  Cravat cravat cravat!)

Warning: Photos of JT have been
known to produce excessive swooning!

Black:

Black with Polka Dots:

Maroon:

No Cravat!
(Try not to faint at the sight of JT's exposed neck.)

Cream:

Black Cravat without Suit Coat:
(Exposed arms!)

No Cravat, No Suit Coat!!!
Oh my goodness... no more, JT... I can't take it!

*THUD*

Most of the above pictures are from Richard Armitage Net's
lovely screencap collection.  Thanks, ladies!

33 comments:

flandersdreamer said...

"cravat" comes from the French word "cravatte" which simply means "tie". But,oh God, how good they look on him, or not on him!
Thanks for making my day, Nat!

Judith Johnson said...

Thanks for calling these subtle touches to our attention. *swoon* The maroon is my personal favorite!

bZirk said...

Yes, Natalie, you always highlight things that some of us have missed! :D

But you know what I really love about JT, he is a man of integrity and obviously sexy. I think sometimes so much is made of the bad boy being sexiest, that sometimes women forget that a man of integrity can definitely be sexy. I'm blessed enough to be married to one of those. Great as JT and Richard Armitage are, they hold nothing on Doug, my husband. After 26 years of marriage, he's still just awesome to me, and I have a big smile on my face as I write this morning. Sorry to bore you ladies with this, but I just couldn't stop myself. It's kind of hard to not express gratitude when you have your own JT. :D

Sue said...

As much as I love Richard in a cravat I much prefer Richard in a waistcoat such as the one he wore for his latest outing with Annabel. He has worn quite a few in his different roles such as Claude Monet.

It would have been nice if the waistcoat he'd chosen for his date had been a bit more lively colourwise. Maybe a silk one next time please Richard. Something a bit natty! Please no more black!!!!! Leave that for attending funerals.

@Rob said...

Nat -- you have out done yourself. thanks again you always make me laugh and smile.


bZ -- God bless ya! Good for you that you have your vry own JT. And thanks for pointing out, WHY, we really love JT. It's bec of who he IS as a man.

A man with integrity and rockin' side burns, a ocean-y blue eyes, and integrity too. The whole package!

My hubby is my hero too. I sent him flowers at work last month and wrote in the card "Thanks for being my Mr. Darcy."

Longhairedtoad said...

Nothing has ever compared to John Thornton for me. With a cravat, without one, It's all THUD worthy.

Myrtle said...

Oh! ladies romance is not dead, how lovely to read your comments.

bZirk, so were you married in 1983? me too. I agree, I'm blessed to be married to a good man, integrity and sexy, are fine qualities. I also like tall, my man is tall :D

Back to JT, I love him in the cravat, however, when he removes it, then I go weak at the knees.I like the waist coat, I like the bare arms,I like the shirt, I like.......I need to go for a rest!

Nat, this is blog is pure joy!

loriBear said...

Cravat is just a sexy word I think Nat! So I'm there with you. I've always preferred cravats, especially this style (not as much into the frilly types from earlier era's).

I completely agree with bZirk in that JT is the ultimate type of man. I don't mind the occasional bad boy but I've always preferred a man like JT. I too am married to such a man and there is NOTHING like them. They last !

Thanks for the picture feast of cravats... they are one of my all time favorites as well.. I like the finely dressed and also the look of JUST removed as well!

bZirk said...

Yep, it was 1983, Myrtle, September to be exact, and I believe that's the year Natalie was born. :D

Oh, and I like tall too, but my man is not quite as tall as JT. In fact, he's the shortest guy I ever dated, but he's just that good. I laugh at him because the girls were really after him when we were in college and he was kind of oblivious to it. Lucky me. LOL!

One more thing about JT. I know we love him because he has such principles, but frankly, don't we love any hero that loves a woman that much? I have to admit that this is one thing I love about Gisborne. Yeah, I know he killed her, but I try not to think about that. It was just not right. Dang those writers.:D

Joan Crenshaw said...

How sweet to see you ladies talk about your wonderful husbands and not take them for granted. I was married to my hero for 27 years (in 1981) and miss him every day.

Since I don't think I'll find another like him, I'll just pursue schoolgirl crushes on RA's characters.

bZirk said...

Sounds like a good plan to me, Joan. :D

Phylly3 said...

Like some of you other ladies, I am still in love with my JT! We have been happily married since 1982! Not to say there haven't been a couple of rocky patches, but when you have a keeper you just make things work!
About the cravats Nat! This was an eye opener for me because I thought I knew what a cravat was (but I was obviously WRONG)! And here all along I thought it was the collar, not the TIE! So I did some googling and discovered a few more facts about cravats including the significance of the colour! And other than the white vs. the black I never even noticed JT wearing the maroon coloured one, let alone, the patterned one!
Nat, you really are a marvel! Apparently, a red cravat denotes passion -- so now I am wondering if there is something a bit different going on in the scenes with the maroon cravat!

bZirk said...

Well, all this talk about the cravats just means I need to rewatch. :D

Oh, and phylly3, I have no idea what a patch free marriage would be like. Tempestuous would describe ours at times, but as the saying goes, "It's fun making up."

DEZMOND said...

looking positively dashing that Mr Armitage :)

And "cravat" isn't from French, it comes from Croatian word "kravata" which means "tie" and the word itself is connected with the fact that Croats were the first one who wore ties in their clothing :)

twinkling moon said...

@Nat, thanks for your detective skills! I never noticed the colors, and definitely not the black on black polka dots.

Yes, I agree that JT is honorable and that makes him swoonworthy, but must admit RA seems pretty swoonworthy in his own right (don't want to confuse the character with the actor)

I also think as characters go Knightely was pretty swoonworthy, haven't read the book in ages and am now going by memory from the movie (the recently made Emma has yet to air in the US but looking forward to it) but he was very honorable IIRC, always doing the right thing. He sold me when he "rescued" Harriet. A true gentlemen!

bZirk said...

Knightley is my favorite Austen hero. Definitely a gentleman, but what makes him my favorite is that he has a wryness about him that I don't see in her other heroes except maybe Henry Tilney, but he's no Mr. Knightley.

Frankly, Darcy is just way too serious. Yes, I love the story! but he is not my favorite.

Edmund is my least favorite.

@Rob said...

god bless america, i think i am going to pop in check out what's what and then get to work. but nooo, you ladies have to start talkin' austen and well, i just can't walk away from that conversation. i just can't!

Edmund is a bit of a weenie. i'll give you that. but look at his family...that book is prob her darkest.


but my fav is persuasion. and i can't seem to find my copy at the moment. i love captin wentworth and would love to see our man RA play him. the thought of loosing love, then finding it again.

i do like henry from Northanger. he's a bit of a scamp.

Greek RA fan said...

RA was an excellent Thorton, as Colin Firth an excellent Darcy (BBC Pride and Prejudice 1995), Jeremy Northam and excellent Mr Knightly (Emma 1996) and Rupert Penry-Jones an excellent Captain Wentworth (Persuasion 2007) (@Rob Ann was a bad choice in that cast, totally wrong pair).
In my opinion there is no need for RA to replay these characters, there are plenty of great roles just to be discovered (as was Thorton for me, and Lucas North and Dr Alec, thank you RA).

Thanks Nat for the fashion choices (RA in an interview appreciated his cravattes a lot!)

@Rob said...

@Greek RA Fan. Well said. Rupert Penry-Jones did make an execellent Capt. Wentworth.

Nat at RA FanBlog said...

It sounds like '83 was a good year! I was born that July, so I don't remember any of it. :)

It's nice to know many of you have (or had) been married to your own JT's. My hubs is quite a handsome, kind fellow... not to brag or anything... well, yes I am. He even has dark hair- the color of JT's and used to have the same sideburns until his work required no facial hair, including sideburns! *SOB* Perhaps we should join the masses of unemployed so that I can have those sexy sideburns to look at again. Kidding! :)

There are so many swoon-worthy Austen leads. I also love Darcy, Capt. Wentworth and Knightly. I agree Edmund was a weenie.

twinkling moon said...

@Rob, Persuasion is my favorite Austen tale, because I too love the idea that 8 years later, they find their way back to each other, neither one having been married.

But hero-wise, Knightley's comportment as a gentleman to everyone he meets can't be beat :)

I never understood the attraction to Darcy, I always thought he was a big jerk (heresy in some circles I know, don't hate me) but his coldness and mean meddling between Jane and Bingley really ticked me off; give me Knightely, Wentworth, or of course our beloved JT any day!

bZirk said...

Oh our JT definitely beats Darcy. :D

BTW, I feel funny every time I use the moniker JT because my first big "love" and the first boy to kiss me was named JT. Like our JT he was a person of character, and I'm happy to report still is. He's happily married to a very nice woman 20+ years and with four kids. I only know that because he's one of my friends on Facebook, and it has been cool to see that my understanding of him in high school as a really neat person was dead on. It's also eerie how much he is like my husband. I guess I knew what I was looking for even way back then.

@Rob said...

one last thing about persuasion ---that letter wentworth writes her, while they are in the room together it gets me. just lovely!!!

knightly is a bit too santmonious for me at times. he's always scolding emma and treating her like a child. that's the part i don't like about him. althou i had a mad crush on the actor who played him in the paltrow vers of Emma.

Q for u Brits...how do you feel about american actresses playing beloved english characters? like bridget jones?


i do love Darcy! give me a cold detached man and i'm butter. what i love about him is that he bec a better man bec of elizabeth. and she is just so sassy!

Myrtle said...

Oh Nat 1983, what a year! Dallas was on the TV, big hair and shoulder pads were in. Our daughters think our wedding photo's are a hoot. It was 2 years after Charles and Diana's wedding,so my dress was a dreadful flouncy merangue!!! What was I thinking of!!!!!

@rob - I adore Rene as Bridget, she was brilliant.

Joan, we are with you enjoying our 'schoolgirl crush' together:D

bZirk said...

As a young woman, I adored brooding, misunderstood, cold fish Darcy who was brought to life by Lizzie, but as an older married woman, I see that he would be a pill to live with, so I'm not so keen on him as I once was. People just don't change that much, and I now know that the things we are most attracted to are sometimes the things we despise later on. Or is that just me? :D

Greek RA fan said...

The magic, the tension are in flirting and romance, in the uncertainty of sharing mutual feelings. What happens afterwards is something different and we all married (with children) women know too well (including myself). The feelings are deeper and stronger but the "crash" is gone.
I know it's for the best, still I miss it (and I truly adore my hubs and my boys).
That's why I love watching all these period drama series to remember how it feels to long for John Thorton or to hope that captain Wendworth is still available and Darcy quite misunderstood (my hubs makes a lot of fun of it of course and asks me to grow up!)

Still it would be quite interesting if someone would try to write the sequel. What happens when the train arrives to Milton?

bZirk said...

I don't know about anyone else, but I can say with conviction that I've fallen in love with my husband many times, which means that we have gone through many periods of uncertainty or tension. Frankly, I've had to pray, "Dear Lord, can you bring IT back?" And the He does, and it is better the second, third, and 42nd time around. I guess what I'm saying is that the energy (or tension if you will) never goes away. I just view it differently from time to time.

But the bottomline for me is that if I ever feel like I completely know my husband and vice versa, we would be bored silly. In fact, my husband said to me the other day that I was still the woman whose thoughts were the most fascinating to him, i.e., I've never bored him. I can say the same about him. Thank God.

I hope whoever writes a sequel -- whether it be published traditionally or fanfiction -- can portray that kind of relationship where two people are always discovering things about each other and NEVER bored.

Greek RA fan said...

@bZirk I'm guessing you mean that none should take the other half for granted and both should evolve in the relationship to keep boredom apart.

What would it be your favorite imaginary sequel scene in Thortons future?
For me it would be the moment John finds out that he would be a father (I would like very much see Richard's expression, I know is the best news ever in a couple's life)

@Nat here's something to think about.

@Rob said...

@bZ so well said and so true. you do fall back in love with each other. i wish i could go into detail about what my husband has done for me in the last yr but it is so true you do fall deeper in love each time.

@Greek i would love to see how margaret and her mother-in-law get on!!! that would be fun!!!

we went from cravats, to jane, to hubbies to funny!!!

bZirk said...

"hubbies to funny!!!"

Why does that make sense? :D

@Greek,

Oh certainly it's about not taking the other one for granted. Sometimes things are just, well, boring, so that it's easy to do that. I know I sound like a brat saying that, but if I'm candid, that's how it goes -- at least in our household. But my husband and I are fairly volatile people so things aren't boring for long.;-)

As for what I would like to see, I'm not sure, but I would relish seeing RA's sweet smile (ala the "he was her brother" scene) on learning that JT is going to be a father.

Twinkling Moon said...

Darn it! Left a whole long comment and my computer went nuts and turned off on me. So here it goes again (don't even know if anyone will be following this post anymore)

Anyhow, @Rob, I understand how Knightley can come across as paternalistic, scolding Emma as he does. But I think I like him for reasons similar to why you like Darcy; Darcy tries to change himself for Elizabeth and I see Emma changing herself too but not so much for Knightley but because he simply is the one who makes her realize that she is not the center of the universe. I like Emma as a romcom but she is a bit immature and I like that Knightley makes her better. To me he has integrity, and that sells me on him.

but I think JT is my alltime favorite cuz he's a self-made man and gotta respect that. Maybe it's being American that sells me on that quality, the whole rags to riches cuz you earned it and worked hard thing, don't know.

@bZirk, I understand how the brooding Darcy type hero can be seen as swoonworthy, but for some reason he just never did it for me even as a young girl. He just didn't seem to respect Elizabeth and I guess my "feminist" ways of thinking, even as a teen just wouldn't sell me on him,

Sorry Nat, I went a bit off topic here, but love the Cravats posting! There's something though about the open collar and exposed throat that does it for me everytime, even more so than a totally bare chest. Am I weird?

bZirk said...

@Twinkling Moon,

Doesn't sound weird at all. IMO, it's comparable to how some men love to see a woman with a slit in her skirt instead of wearing a mini-skirt. Isn't it funny how the suggestion of something can be much more powerful than the reality.

As for Darcy, the most appealing thing about him is his repartee with Elizabeth. That's what I loved most when I read the book the first time and still do. Uh, and that's a dynamic between my husband and me, so I'm partial to that kind of banter. :D

Oh, and when I began to really warm towards John Thornton was when he was introduced to Margaret by her father. There was some fencing there, if you will.

twinkling moon said...

@bZirk, thanks for settling my mind :) nice to know I'm not weird for thinking that "less can be more" :)

Yeah, I see what you mean about Darcy, exchange of witticisms can be alluring and intoxicating, but I'm not that sharp witted, unfortunately. wish I was, but was not blessed with that particular talent, *sigh*