Hooray for Hose!

 Today is National Nylon Hose Day. 

Varying in color, design, and transparency, a nylon stocking is a close-fitting, variously elastic garment worn the same as socks or tights. Before the 1890s they were made of woven cloth such as cotton, linen, wool, or silk and worn for warmth. As hemlines of women’s dresses rose in the 1920s, women began to wear stockings over their exposed legs. These 1920s stockings were sheer, made first of silk or rayon.

Chemical company DuPont introduced nylon stocking on this day in 1940, and a high demand for stockings ensued. They were inexpensive, durable, and shear. Up to 4 million pairs would be purchased each day. On February 11, 1942, when America entered World War II, DuPont ceased production of nylon stockings and switched its focus to the manufacture of parachutes, airplane cords, and rope. This created a mass shortage followed by a black market for stockings. Some patriotic women even donated their stockings to the war effort to be recycled. Women were told to mend and make do at this time. However, sheer nylon stockings do not mend easily when they get a run, and stocking with runs were not be worn in public. Women first raided their kitchens and used things like gravy (GROSS!), cocoa, and tea to paint or stain their legs to make it look like they had stockings on. Make-up companies then invented leg make-up or ‘liquid stockings’ as they were called. Eyeliner was used to draw a back seam up the back of the leg. Salons began offering leg painting services and things like leg makeup bars popped up in department stores. The stocking shortage did help increase the popularity of pants. These were happily worn by younger women working land and factory jobs. At the end of World War II, DuPont resumed production of the stockings and the women were ready. When one department store in Pittsburg announced they had 13,000 pairs of nylon stockings to sell, 40,000 women showed up, waiting in mile long lines to get their hands on just one pair. Fights broke out and nylon riots ensued. There were also line ups of 30,000 women in New York. Department store displays and shelves were destroyed, and a newspaper headline read “Women Risk Life and Limb in Bitter Battle for Nylons”.

Pantyhose were invented in the late 1950s and went on sale in 1959, providing a convenient alternative to stockings which led to a decline in their sales. In 1970, United States sales of pantyhose exceeded stocking sales and have remained the same ever since. They became popular in the mid-1960s (thanks to the mini-skirt). They were revolutionary because women no longer needed to wear a girdle or garter belt.       

Now ladies I'm old and so I grew up during that time when our nylons were held up by girdles, garter belts or panty girdles. Boy was I excited when I got my first pair of pantyhose in high school. I'll never forget putting them on for the first time. As I put them on I kept snagging them but I had picked up a piece of information saying that you could stop a run in your hose with a dab of clear nail polish. Once on, I dabbed each snag with polish. So my first pair had quite a few of these

 dabs. Unfortunately when you took the hose off and those dabs came away from your skin it left white blobs where each one was. So my very first pair of pantyhose had white crusty polka dots all over them.  I actually think a few runs would have looked better. 

Oh well, we live and we learn.