The psychology of stockings

Stockings and heelsMatthew’s whole complex persona centred around the unquenchable quest for the stocking. Shocking? (Easy pun. Sorry, couldn’t resist it) Not really – many men have fantasies about girlfriends in stockings and suspenders. It’s just that Matthew thought about very little else. He was, as I stated long ago, completely obsessed.

We also ought to spend a minute or two looking at the situation from Matthew’s point of view. You see, there are other elements in this equation, and each has its part to play. And those elements are tights, shoes, hemlines, trousers (God forbid), tights again, denier, Lycra, hold-ups, colour, summer, pop socks, and even ankles. With so much to blend into a perfect whole it’s hardly surprising it had become a life’s work.

Tights were the real killer, for a connoisseur like Matthew. On the lower leg they looked the same and yet they were not the same. And that, from Matthew’s perspective qualified as the first most frustrating thing in the world. Consequently it would be fair to clarify Matthew’s position as being the quest for the stocking top. Not, you understand, because he wanted to look up ladies’ skirts (he was far too polite, and too much of a gentleman for that). But because it was only with a glimpse of the stocking top (perhaps when the wearer would sit down, and her short skirt would ride up that tempting inch, showing a fraction of lace or – the ecstasy! – a suspender) that he could have unarguable proof that stockings were on the agenda.
Now, take a step back. What was the secret of the stocking, and why did it hold so much power? Was it, perhaps, the inherent femininity? Was it, as Matthew would enthusiastically describe, the delightful shadow it gave to the calf as the nylon hugged itself around? The delightful “swish-swish” of stocking-clad thighs? Was it a fascination with clothing that Matthew, as a man, was denied? Maybe, on a baser level, it was years of conditioning, from looking at pornography, and the association of stockings with sex. Maybe it was all of these, (and sex certainly creeps in there somewhere along the line) but maybe, for Matthew it was none.
Tights, then. Big problem. Not sexy. Matthew of course, enjoyed looking at legs in tights, until, paradoxically, he knew that he was looking at legs in tights. If the wearer should sit down and show an expanse of thigh, but not reveal even a hint of a top (technically called a welt, I believe, but that sounds like the after-effects of a good, stern whipping session, and bondage has no part to play here), he could be heard to give an audible sigh of frustration. Hopes built high were cruelly dashed on the rocks of Cape Gusset. Matthew’s eyes would move on. You see, he fundamentally didn’t understand why women wore tights. If you ladder one you have to replace the pair, you have to take them off when you need the toilet, and the proximity of nylon to such a sensitive area, could not, he assumed, be good for your health. Above all though, tights were despised because they were the enemy, and an enemy with a majority rule.
Matthew saw his role as a vigilante – a mercenary in the tights versus stockings war. And it was a war, no doubt about that. Complete with casualties. His crusade had had notable successes. You no doubt remember, early in 1999 (around the time of the genetically modified food scare) how there was a health warning about how tights could cause “feminine itching” and make women infertile while fresh air to the genitals (pants permitted) could help prevent all sorts of nasties like tuberculosis and cancer? That was one of Matthew’s. Dreamt up in his office back in adland, backed by spurious research from a fictitious healthcare company, and covered by all of the major broadcasters and the press. A simple idea, but devastatingly effective and yet still there was a lot to do. If you had been standing in the queue that day in the airport, you may have been able to catch a glimpse of an article entitled “Why New Women are returning to suspenders” in the magazine in Matthew’s grip. He had written it six weeks earlier – one of his many contributions as freelance fashion correspondent Marcel Bellamy. A charade, but seemingly a remarkable – and he hoped, influential – success.
Back to the list: shoes. A very important factor. Matthew was conventional in this respect. Heels were good, stilettos the best, and black suede court stilettos best of all. (For stilettos you could substitute other heels of a similarly tottering nature, although nothing too clumpy please.) Ankle boots were okay, but espadrilles were most definitely not. “Sensible” shoes (that great contradiction – what, after all, as Matthew often reasoned, was “sensible” about footwear designed solely (another pun!) to cool the ardour of a gender?) were likely to gain instant rejection. But remember that Matthew was not a foot fetishist, and even the most perfect pair of shoes (and by perfect we mean high enough to give shape to the leg, smart enough to demand legwear of some description) could be ruined if the rest of the equation was wrong.
Hemlines. Vital again. Remember, Matthew was not a pervert in the classic sense, and he had no real desire to see up a skirt or to know the colour of a lady’s underwear. But hemlines were crucial because if too long, he would never catch a glimpse of the “top”, and if too short, the wearer would sacrifice stockings at the grim altar of decency. Mini skirts were okay in the bedroom, where tartiness could be encouraged, but he knew well enough, that women were unlikely to want the attention fostered by wearing stockings and a mini in the street. And who could blame them when so many men less sensitive than Matthew were around to make unsophisticated leers of lust?
Trousers (God forbid). Another big enemy, right up there alongside the massed regiments of the army Tight. Women, he knew, were unlikely to wear stockings with trousers, and even though there was always a chance, a glimpse of nylon-clad ankle was rarely enough, on its own, to raise either his pulse or his expectations.
Tights again. Before moving onto the exotica of Denier (a word right up there with Aristoc) it’s actually worth reconsidering the position of tights. “So soon?” you cry. “Haven’t we just dismissed them?” Well, yes, but it’s not exactly as cut and dry as I may have led you to believe. Matthew thought tights were okay under one very specific circumstance: when they offered the only practical alternative to bare legs or trousers. And obviously only as long as the wearer went for those suspender tights you get in Sock Shop and the like, and when the woman concerned would choose stockings whenever she possibly could. He couldn’t think when such a circumstance would ever arise, but the get-out clause was there just in case.
Denier. Matthew, you have to remember, was first and foremost a man. The murky world of denier is not a man’s domain. If you ever find yourself being chatted up on the Internet by somebody who claims to be a woman, ask her the denier of her hosiery. It is a question guaranteed to sort out real women from the wannabes. How, then, was he to know the difference between seven and 10, or even between 15 and 20? Of course he knew what he liked – and had worked out that, in general, the lower the number the better. Opacity was not a property to admire. But having said that, he actually liked dark, black, stockings, and had to admit that the finest mesh could not contain that much tone alone. He assumed (with the benefit of some of his own experimentation in the field) that 10 denier would be pretty much the ticket but he was not sure, and it was a constant source of frustration.
Lycra. Another lady word. Lycra, he had decided, was probably a good thing from a stretch point of view, but was it the Lycra that was responsible for the beautiful sheen on some legs that was so depressingly absent from others? The problem, you see, was that questions had to remain unasked. In keeping his obsession a private affair (and always sensitive not to appear a pervert or give women cause for alarm) he was unable to approach people on the train and ask them outright about brand, finish, Lycra, and of course the denier. He was learning, of course. The Marcel Bellamy disguise gave him some license to explore the subject, but nevertheless, the direct approach was out.
Hold-ups. A curiosity. Matthew liked hold-ups, but they did not hold quite the some frisson of excitement as their more refined cousin, the stocking proper. Part of the stocking’s appeal lay, quite naturally, in the suspender belt, and obviously hold-ups denied these their purpose. Yet hold-ups were infinitely better than tights. They could still look stylish and sexy. Okay, so there was something missing (and he could never quite come to terms with the lack of suspenders), but if stockings were unavailable, hold-ups would do just nicely.
Colour. A personal matter. You have to understand that even the most unflattering colour could be overlooked, but Matthew did have his favourites. Black, obviously, for general purpose wear – the classic combination of smart and sexy. Nearly black? (Or even barely black?) He was not quite sure about those. (Hey girls, why not go the whole hog? You’ve already made it this far!) Blue – the least favourite perhaps, but it depended on the shade. White: yes! The virginal look was a guaranteed winner. Red: perhaps in the bedroom but not really during the day. Nude, or any of those other skin-type shades (Honey? Mink?): a good result, Matthew decided, on the basis that the wearer was obviously the secretive type, but that was okay with him. Within the realm of colour came the welt – or top – itself: lace tops were obviously the best, and if the lace contained the initial of the manufacturer (the intertwined PP now sadly dropped by Pretty Polly or an elegant A for Aristoc) then so much the better. Plain tops were less exciting, but he understood that they were also less expensive, and so they could happily be forgiven. Either way, the welt had to be reasonably deep for maximum appeal.

As you may have realised by now, fishnets did not enter the equation. They were okay in their own particular way, but just too obvious for a man of Matthew’s sophisticated taste.

Back to the list. Next comes Summer. This was a bad season as it gave women an excuse to go round with bare legs. He understood why. Tights must be uncomfortable in all that heat, but in that case why not switch to stockings? His hit rate of sightings went down dramatically during the summer months, and he welcomed autumn like an old friend.

Pop socks aka knee highs. For heaven’s sake, why? If anything looked less sexy than tights or the bare leg, it had to be the pop sock. Pop socks were for old people, and they had no part to play in Matthew’s obsession. But the fact that the great hosiery factories could turn out pop socks on lines not unadjacent to the ultimate lace top stocking perplexed him on many a lonely night.

Ankles. The final factor. If all else was right, the ultimate high came from a finely turned ankle. The ankle, perhaps, has a lesser role in this narrative than Lycra, say, or the hemline. But a good ankle was the final factor that could make Matthew fall in love.

The seamy side of life

Seamed StockingsSuggestive stockings are making a serious comeback in time for the Millennium party season and fishnet and seamed are the order of the day. Ita O’Kelly-Browne reports.

SEXY seamed stockings are seriously back in fashion for the party season of the century as women re-discover that the feminine glamour of the ’40s beats ’90s-style glamour hands down. Saucy today means going light on the lipstick and the cleavage in favour of seductive and suggestive legwear because of course a seamed stocking encourages the eye to travel vertically up the back of the leg. If in doubt just think of Marilyn Monroe!

While most women of the previous generation happily left behind their stockings and suspender belts and embraced the convenience of tights like a long lost friend, a whole new generation of younger women have discovered for themselves that old fashioned glamour has never really lost its edge after all. There is a time and a place for black heavy duty opaque tights and at this stage they have seriously out-stayed their welcome. Glamour is back with a bang and the seamy side of life is now where it is all happening.

Manufacturing outlets in the UK who have always made seamed and regular stockings for a small band of die-hards who refused to wear tights, have found themselves scrambling to cope with unprecedented demand for leg glamour from all over the world. Old nylon making machines which have been idle for years at The Silk Mill Hosiery Company in Derbyshire in the UK have had a service and been put back into unexpected production. They have now teamed up with deluxe hosiery firm Wolford to create a pair of tights which look like seamed stockings complete with garter belt but they are designed so that only the wearer knows that they are not quite the real thing!

And Irish women are very much to the forefront of the new fashion for seductive stockings according to Brown Thomas who report brisk demand for sexy stockings for the party season. The top drawer stocking company Wolford who make the Rolls Royce of stockings are walking off the shelves at £22.50 per pair. Most popular are Subjekt fishnet tights from Wolford which are designed to look like stockings with a sheer top and an opaque piece at the top which is supposed to give the impression of bare flesh! BT’s are currently waiting for supplies of old fashioned seamed stockings in the same range which will also retail at £22.50.

Nylons as they were known first made their appearance in Ireland in the late 1940s. This season sees the re-launch of a new range from Pretty Polly called Nylons which are retro-style products to celebrate their 50th anniversary. The biggest sellers in the range according to a company spokesperson are a black seamed stocking which is also available in tights and has a very stylish Cuban heel. The look is designed to coincide with the revival of forties fashion this year where skirts are brushing the knee seductively and sheer and shimmering legs complete the look.

The other big seller this season according to Brown Thomas are seamed 15 denier tights with a difference the seam in this case is made from pearls which go from the heel to the top of the leg also by Wolford and retailing at £22.50. According to Brown Thomas younger women in the twentysomething age groups tend to opt for hold-ups which are ersatz stockings while women in the 30 and upwards age groups tend to go for the real thing for glamorous occasions.

Over at Arnott’s a similar picture emerges according to veteran fashion observer at the Accessories Department Ann Warren who says that there is much more interest in glamorous stockingwear this year than ever before.

”There is no doubt that the more glamorous stockings and tights are more fashionable right now and seamed and sparkly are the favoured option for the Christmas and Millennium party season. I find that the young to middle aged are choosing the fishnets in black for evening wear but only the adventurous are opting for the white or red fishnets in the Elle range.

Pretty Polly seamed stockings and tights are also going well and I also find that the Italian fashion for wearing a pair of regular tights and a pair of fishnets over them is now becoming popular here. It can look well on the younger woman who likes to stand out”, according to Ann who is always at her busiest at this time of year.

A combination of things have contributed to the newfound interest in seamed stockings, patterned tights and fishnets, not the least of which is the fact that today it is once again politically correct for women to not only want to look glamorous but seductive as well. Add to this the re-appearance of fancy hosiery on the catwalk where fashion has become more feminine and the fact that the joint effects of the Christmas and Millennium party season are having on women worldwide and you have a veritable avalanche of sophisticated elegance in the offing which presumably will please a great deal of men not to mention hosiery companies.

Bloodstock manager and social animal Elaine Lawlor is better known to most people by her pet name ‘Legs Lawlor‘ because of her incredibly long legs. Thirty-nine-year-old Elaine who is 6ft1” tall or 5ft13” as she describes herself, was first given the name when at school and it has simply stuck with her ever since.

Elaine modestly maintains that it is just because of their length her inside leg measures 36 inches but most men would probably maintain that her pet name results from both the shape and length of her legs. And it probably has something to do with the fact that she is one of those women who ALWAYS wears stockings because she hates tights.

”I have never liked tights and I also find them most unhygienic. While many people claim that wearing stockings is inconvenient, I would have to say that I do not find them inconvenient at all. Mind you that being said I actually wear jeans most of the time for my work but when I am going out I always wear skirts and stockings simply because I like them and find them sexy”.

While Elaine loves stockings she is not a fan of either fishnets because she believes that being understated is the key to elegance for a woman.

”I believe in keeping it simple so I always wear dark sheer stockings for evening and light sheer in the day. I always choose sheer stockings because I think that they are sexier”.

Marilyn Monroe wore seamed stockings like nobody else could; Jane Russell wore seamed fishnets to great effect; Madonna virtually launched her career on the back of black fishnet stockings teamed with hob nail boots; Sharon Stone is a self-confessed fan of real silk stockings; Jerry Hall has always confessed to being an old fashioned girl at heart and she always wears seamed stockings when dressing up; Tina Turner regularly dresses her trademark long legs in fishnets to excellent effect.

An appeal to common sense – anon

tockings for the lovers of lifeOf all the questions concerning God and our Creator, the paradox of life, the convoluted mysteries of death and the beyond … the only enigma that has me baffled is: Why aren’t all women lesbians? We men are large, clumsy, hairy, and in most cases very inept … we’re proud, arrogant, and crude beasts. It has always completely eluded me – Why would any human desire an animal such as us, when they could feel the silky lips, the curvature of hips, thighs, and back … that could only be compared with the ebbs and swells of an ocean, the soft tease of hair against the delicious bite of nails of a lusty woman? It’s the aura of the infinite that encompasses women, avatars of life and passion. And when these divine creatures adorn those luscious leggings, it’s the equivalent of God in full armor, brandishing a sword above his head – a site that is, to use the cliché, awe-inspiring.

I’m still young and passionate, inexperienced in that I’m still with my first lover, but I’ll always remember that burst of life that shot through me when she first came to me in naught but those glorious stockings. It’s a momentary, fleeting, but blissful flavor of the nectar the gods must drink. As a man, to know she wants and loves you enough to use all the tools in her power to go above and beyond what is necessary to turn you on, is simply magnificent.

In two months, I leave for West Point, NY to the United States Military Academy. It’s a cause I wholeheartedly believe is worth defending, fighting, and dying for … no, I’m not talking about stockings [that wouldn’t be too corny…]. It’s for life and the passion that it inspires. It is the same passion that brings young lovers to each others arms, that pushes them to do more for one another, not only sexually, but financially, socially, and religiously. For those of us that worship women and the exotic, but sophisticated air about them, the stocking is a symbol of that passion – a banner that screams to all, the pleasures and motivations of all our furious endeavors and mule-stubborn drives.

Bare legs are for the lazy; pantyhose for the practical; stockings for the lovers of life. Besides, at the risk of destroying the credibility of all I just argued, stockings offer easier access.

End of a love affair?

Bunch of stockings“This is just the thing I’ve been thinking about lately & was considering posting about it. Why were women once incredibly in love with nylons (that famous date is May 15, 1940 when women mobbed stores when nylon was first introduced), and now detest, are ambivalent about, or only mildly interested in, nylon hosiery (I include pantyhose)?

“A related question: how could stockings – a revolutionary garment brought about by modern chemical technology – have fallen into disregard, nay oblivion – so quickly (at best after 30 years)? These are intriguing questions.

“Perhaps feminism must be held to blame. As Susan Brownmiller says in Femininity (1984, Fawcett/Ballantine Books – perhaps the definitive anti-feminine, feminist tract): ‘the subtle tyranny of the nylon stocking over the minds and actions of women for the next twenty years – until it was partially overthrown by the anti-bourgeois fashion revolution of the Sixties – should not be forgotten.’

“By the late ’80s most women still wore some nylon on their legs. Come the ’90s, and nylon-wearers have become the minority. That’s probably because even women who consider themselves ‘feminine’ have adopted more casual attire.

“The other contradiction I notice about women – and not even particularly ‘feminine’ ones – is the attention to otherwise feminine ‘looks’ – ie grooming and make-up. It’s hard to come across any woman these days who doesn’t paint her nails. Most wear lipstick. Most spend a lot of attention on their hair and skin. It’s in the realm of clothing that attitudes, for some reason, have changed. This is an ongoing discussion… It’s as if there is some kind of sinister plot to put women off wearing nylons. It’s leading to nylon warfare!

“I think what I can deduce from this in a nutshell, is that women always appear to be old enough to decide whether they like nylons or not (possibly influenced) but for a man it is as if nature intended it to be. I certainly didn’t choose to like women in nylons, but I do and I’m proud to admit it, after all it’s something that was out of my control! I never knew the subject of nylon stockings was so complex, it’s like rocket science!”

“Down here where I live in Kent, I have done studies on particular women on a regular basis (excluding my girlfriend) to see how often they wore a skirt and hosiery. The girls that I have studied, at work, in local shops, in pubs etc, have continually worn trousers. This has been over a period of almost eighteen months. Femininity I am afraid to say is rapidly diminishing and female pride in dress sense has almost gone entirely.”

“Yes, we can all agree that there are choices out there – and that we as women should exercise that choice. However, I truly believe that in some cases the trendsetters are putting their ideas out there, and so overpowering any other competition as to make it non-existent. When was the last time anyone walked into a store and found the choices of skirts, blouses and nice dresses to be anywhere as large as the trouser/ jacket sections? I have to hunt until I’m blue in the face to find pretty clothing! All the stuff that is out there makes me think of Communist re-education camps! And as for choices in hosiery – well, here you have to wade through the knee-deep piles (pardon the pun) of opaques and other garbage just to find decent fleshtone nylons!

“And remember who it is that’s running the American Fashion industry right now. All those women who ran around burning their bras thirty years ago! Did you ever see one feminine piece of clothing turned out by Donna Karan? And forget about our pal Calvin – he’s been designing for skinny little boys for thirty years!

“Until we see a new crop of designers come in with the intelligence of Christian Dior or the style of Coco Chanel, we ain’t gonna see anything new.”

“On recent visits to the supermarket, it has been my observation whilst standing in the queue waiting to pay and looking at people’s shopping (and be honest, we all do!) that women are not buying stockings. Even when you look at the hosiery sections, tights are more widely displayed than stockings, and when you go into a newsagent’s shop stockings are not to be seen on display for sale – just tights and pop socks.

“Sadly, although this web site is doing it’s utmost best to promote stockings, I feel that overall the tights revolution has got a ‘foothold’! Even if a woman is not wearing tights, then she is closeted in trousers.”

“In taking a purely pragmatic view of things you’re probably right but you shouldn’t be so defeatist. After all, we on this forum aren’t going to change the world overnight. It is a long haul job and results will be hard to come by but you must keep the faith and believe that stockings will persist and if enough people keep spreading the word then it will get better.

“There isn’t enough publicity about at the moment to make a real difference and of course the manufacturers have an interest in keeping it that way. Just remember, seeing the next woman in stockings will be all the more sweeter just because they’re quite rare.”

Nylon: the last taboo

Stockings... whore?“I just noticed a posting on the Vogue web site fashion forum. A woman didn’t want to do ‘the whole nylon thing’ when dressing-up. Because, get this, ‘some people may think that you’re a prostitute if you wear nylons.’ So that, folks, in the year 2001, is the symbolic state to which stocking-wearing has become.

“Reading the postings here over the past few months I have definitely noticed a transatlantic divide on the stocking issue. In the UK stockings are seldom worn because of the general and lamentable decline in dress standards and trend towards shabby ‘casual’ attire (which applies as much to men as it does to women).

“There does not seem, however, to be much actual disapproval of stockings and suspenders per se. From the postings of our North American correspondents (and especially those from the US) it would appear that there exists quite a measure of outright hostility toward both stockings and the women who wear them. It seems very odd. Can anyone enlighten the board as to just why and when this hostility developed?”

Nylons are, these days, associated by the Western mind with sex and prostitution. This is a stereotyped image, which results largely from about 70 years of glamour photos and erotic films. It is very interesting to note that the use of the dildo by lesbians – which was a common feature of erotic imagery but was in fact far removed from the truth – has in the last decade been adopted by the lesbian ‘community’. How extraordinary that pornographic images, created by straight men for the enjoyment of straight men, have so influenced the sexual behaviour of those women who – superficially – reject men (whilst they simultaneously admire women who masquerade as men!). Basically, human behaviour is influenced/determined by fashion. The baby boomers, bra burners and the rest of ’em think they’re thinking for themselves – in reality, they are just fellow passengers in a never-ending fashion parade. Tell the feminists that nylons are a form of ‘female empowerment’ – and they’ll wear ’em!

“Could some of this be latent emotions placed upon young ladies today by their bra-burning, hairy legged mamas? The baby-boomers’ children are in high school and college now, and are probably poisoned with their wacky ideas. I never understood the boomers’ whole value system – don’t want the children to have a basic moral upbringing, no manners, any sense of right and wrong, etc. because that’s all false; people should just suck it up and take you at your lumpiest – but they’re afraid to admit that they smoked a little weed in college and slept around – for fear that they’ll try it too.

“Here’s my other theorem: part of it comes from pantyhose being made now with more Lycra and spandex in them than ever before, which when worn all day, seems to hold the heat and perspiration close to the body. This is especially true in the summer around the waist area.

“As for being thought of as a prostitute for wearing nylons -who gives a damn? Are we all a nation of lemmings?”

“You are not alone in your wonderment of the people in this country: Grunge clothes are an expression of individuality, but a lady who chooses to wear glamorous lingerie must be a slut. Girdles are frowned on but pantyhose manufacturers are doing everything but dipping women in a vat of Lycra up to their waist to ensure that waist to toe compression.

“Pantyhose did NOT replace stockings because there was anything wrong with stockings – they were billed as being more convenient and more suitable for shorter skirts.

“Even on this forum, some posters want to set moral standards on what age is ‘proper’ for a young lady to wear stockings. There is an impression that it is not possible for a lady to want to wear stockings for any reason OTHER than sex and the gratification of their mates.

“The hostile people one correspondent encountered in the health club last month would not have given her a second thought if she had purple hair and a chain connecting her nose to her nipple! But because she was wearing NORMAL lingerie from the period prior to pantyhose she was harassed.

“Woman need to concede that there are a lot of hypocrites out there that talk out both sides of their mouth and brains. I only wonder what new diseases and maladies will plague woman as, as you pointed out, pantyhose gets more and more confining and restricting. Maybe I need to complete my pre-med studies – might be a run on doctors.”

Stockings: the hosiery equivalent of a fountain pen

Classy stockings“I think the analogy between sheer hosiery and fountain pens is far better than the one with CDs/vinyl. Fountain pens, one would have thought, have long passed their use-by date, but they are still on sale everywhere (even W.H. Smith has a large selection, as does Office World). For most important uses, whether in professional life, social letter-writing or signing Wedding registers, the fountain pen still reigns supreme.

“Maybe we are on a sad path to less ‘everyday’ wearing of sheer hosiery (even I concede that it is seen less now than, say, 10 years ago) but to die out completely – that is both unthinkable and unlikely!

“Sheer hosiery will never completely die out. Nylons are always going to be the ‘get out of jail card’ for these manufacturers. Nothing is ever likely to be as popular as sheer hosiery and they know it. That’s why every so often they will target a new generation with new role models helping the campaign. If they paid Posh ‘tart’ Spice a fortune to wear any kind of sheer hosiery tomorrow (and for her it would have to be a fortune!) you can bet your bottom dollar all of a sudden they will be the most popular item since sliced bread!”

“It is funny that you should mention fountain pens, as that exact same thought crossed my mind. I have no idea what the demographics of the fountain pen buyer base are, but I would suspect that they are on the older side. (I myself only use fountain pens, but at 34, I am considered an eccentric in my office).

“If we look for another analogy, consider the classic American station-wagon. From the ’50s to the mid 1980s, the driveways of suburban America were filled with large, traditionally styled, separate-chassis station wagons, replete with whitewall tyres and woodgrain panelling. They were the symbol par supreme of middle-class American family life. Over a few years, the market for these cars collapsed. It was not because of fuel prices or anything like that, it was just that (younger) buyers decided, en masse, that they did not want them anymore.

“This is not the place for a detailed analysis of why, but suffice it to say that General Motors cancelled its last surviving traditional station wagons in 1996 because it could more profitably employ its resources elsewhere. The new generation of buyers had, for whatever reason, decided that the big wagons were no longer desirable, and simple economic logic dictated that production was no longer viable. This same logic is, I firmly believe, applicable to hosiery. Marketing people make mistakes, but they have their finger on the pulse of consumer tastes, and marketers are particularly keen to gauge the tastes of the young, for they make the buying decisions of tomorrow. It really is as simple as that, alas.

“I don’t know where you are based, but here in West Yorkshire, the use of fountain pens is pretty rare. They tend to be confined to doctors, headmasters, solicitors, accountants; that sort of occupation: professionals of a traditionalist leaning, although I concede that there are yet more that use them (myself included). Compared with FF stockings, however, they are as common as the day is long. My last FF stocking sighting occurred in the town of Keighley in the late summer of 1991. Two formally dressed ladies in their late 50s were strolling around town, presumably on their lunch hour. As they passed, it became apparent that one of them was wearing FF nylons. I nearly died of shock, having seen no FFs for many years previously. She noticed my interest and smiled knowingly. Since then, no FF sightings whatsoever, though I have seen other types. FF stockings are – to all intents and purposes – extinct, and have been for a long, long time.”

“After Aristoc ceased their manufacture (on commercial grounds alone) in the mid-1990s, there were a few doldrum years, but fully-fashioned stockings are once again freely available – from at least three different manufacturers, in a variety of styles, colours etc. In fact they’re probably on sale at more outlets (including online) now than at any time since the 1960s. I don’t think that, in the long-term, women are so boringly self-unaware that they will TOTALLY shun sheer legwear.”

Stockings: facing extinction, or not?

Stockings at work“One correspondent recently suggested that the relentless slide toward lowest-common-denominator dress has some merit, i.e. that it made the increasing rarity of stockings all the more desirable. I have to tell you now that I find this argument pure, unalloyed nonsense.

“Firstly, I am sure that I speak for all those readers who enjoyed the second, all too brief, flowering of stockings in the latter 1980s and very much regretted the sudden and, I think, final, collapse of stocking wearing circa 1991-1992. Life is simply much poorer and more dreary without femininity in ladies’ dress. Of more relevance, however, is some actual ‘field’ research I have carried out in the past two weeks. Desperate to establish why the trend has been toward ever more casual (indeed, ultra-casual) dress, I began to quiz young women of the ages 18-25(ish) on their tastes and preferences. Without exception, all expressed their distaste for tights. A few grudgingly complied, wearing 70 denier opaque tights, but only when they absolutely had to, i.e. in those workplaces where such a dress code existed. I then openly asked the question: what of stockings and suspenders? Again, without exception, every single one expressed their complete scorn for the very idea. One suggested that she might wear white stockings on her wedding day, and another thought that perhaps she might wear them ‘in the bedroom’ (her words) to give her fiance a special treat.

“The last of these ‘interviews’ took place in a pub on Wednesday evening; every female present wore either trousers, jeans, leggings or tracksuit bottoms. My research was carried out in the north of England, but I suspect its results hold true for the rest of the country. Given that these women are the future, it seems highly likely that hosiery in general is in terminal decline and stockings, obviously, will be the first to go. The attitudes of the women I questioned were unequivocal: we don’t want to know. Peer-group pressure, an immensely strong force, will guarantee conformity. So, those here who enjoy the ‘exclusivity’ of those ‘rare and exciting’ glimpses, savour your next sighting, it may be your last.”

“For several years now I have been keeping a count of how many times I have seen a woman wearing stockings. Just for the record these are the results

1990 32
1991 – 56
1992 – 138
1993 – 144
1994 – 74
1995 – 81
1996 – 59
1997 – 81
1998 – 138
1999 – 104
2000 – 140

“I’m not sure that this really proves anything, except that here are still plenty of women wearing stockings if you know where to look.”

“I don’t know if there are geographic, economic and social class factors at work here, but as a Londoner, I can confirm that professional women (including businesswomen, lawyers, secretaries etc) in London wear dresses/skirts almost all of the time, and whilst I agree that it is not universal, I see no sign of extinction of hosiery (opaques in winter, sheer in summer) for a long time yet!

“Even on a recent week-end trip to Nottingham, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of women, of all ages, wearing dresses/skirts, and hosiery of one sort or another – and these were clearly not being worn as part of an office dress-code etc. I was also pleased with the quality of the legs seen!

“I also live near a prep school, and a number of the mothers I see every day collecting their children are wearing dresses and hosiery. These are, by and large ‘stay at home’ mothers and housewives.

“So, I’m happy to spread a note of optimism amongst all the gloom and doom!”

“You are both right and wrong in my opinion. Strangely enough I have also had the odd conversation with some women in the appropriate setting when answers are more likely to be given more freely and truthfully. Down here in London I fairly frequently catch a glimpse/definite telltale sign that a fair number of women under 30 (even 25) are wearing stockings these days. But I don’t think the ridiculous cost of living down here is worth putting up with just for that, however nice it may be!”

“Having read today’s ‘Times’ Part 2 supplement, there’s an article confirming the ‘bare legged in all weathers’ look as a Northern thing, and a ghastly photograph of a couple of slappers sitting outside a Newcastle nightclub wearing criminally short skirts, and warming their ugly bared toes! To add insult to injury, the article goes on to say something about the only non bare-legs seen in the wintry North being women wearing opaques, who are regarded as wimps by all the others!”

“I think you need to broaden your horizons. In the shop I see women in stockings every day – aged from 18 right up to their 60s. Around town fishnets are everywhere you look. Okay, so they are probably tights but it shows that girls are thinking about what they’re wearing on their legs and that’s a good sign.

“I have to admit that when I go to the launderette I don’t wear stockings but if I’m going anywhere remotely interesting then I dress up a little.”

“Fact: fashion is cyclical.

“Fact: in my experience young women around my age seem to be increasingly turning to holdups which, while still maybe not enough for the purists, is a Very Good Thing.”

“I’ve read articles about nylon stockings and without doubt the fact they have been a phenomenon (easy for me to say!) over 60 years is proof of the pudding. But it’s fair to say sales will never reach the heights they once did. It could be a fashion cycle issue or it might be a society issue but one thing’s for certain, if any product is not advertised to the widest audiences it won’t sell too well. During the eighties nylons were advertised on British TV, newspapers, bus shelters and those giant bill boards (crikey the number of times I nearly hit a lamppost when driving past the boards!).

A question of ethnicity?

Kei NishikoriWould anyone care to shed some insight on whether certain ethnicities are more inclined to wear stockings as opposed to others? I would like to hear some feedback.

– It is an issue I have been thinking of recently as I stock ‘skintone’ stockings which could seem a bit offensive to some customers. Even though 95% of my stocking customers are white I have been thinking of stocking a bitter chocolate colour as well (although this is for selfish reasons as I think they’d look great on dark skin) – I’ve got a few black and asian friends so I’ll have to find out what they do for hosiery.

– Here in OZ, the plane loads of young female Japanese tourists who come here seem to have a fixation with hosiery. I have even seen them wear ph with their bathers whilst swimming at the beaches here! In Singapore, the office and shop girls dress extremely well, with great attention paid to their hair and make-up, always with skirts/dresses and pantyhose and heels.

But the most delightful sight is in Bangkok where the office girls in lovely tight skirts, pantyhose and heels seem to be able to gracefully board and disembark the ferries on the rivers without the help of gang-planks. This involves stepping (really more of a leap) up onto the jetties, from ferries which don’t actually stop but merely slow down a bit. You can spend hours watching this and not get tired of the parade.

I’m sorry to have mentioned the dreaded ph word in this forum, but when you are a dedicated leg man and stocking watcher such as I, one has to carefully take notice of what is being worn and take the bad with the good.

– When I lived in San Fransisco and Oakland in the late ’70s and the early ’80s, it seemed that seams were the required getup for Central American, particularly Nicuraguan babes out on a date, or dressed up out with husband and the kiddies on a weekend night. I used to see Mexican and Mexican American babes all seamed up in LA and at big Tejano dances I used to go to in South Tejas during the same years. Even here in Miami I have been at the home of middle aged Latino friends and seen the wife getting all seamed up for a night at some cultural association.

Not to mention my soul sisters. I have seen some really seamy black women. In the south especially it continued I think into the 1970s as a dress up for church thing.

– Is there necessarily a rule that hosiery should match leg colour? White women wear black or dark-coloured stockings after all… I think a black woman could well look stunning in cream or white hose!

– Living in a large urban area with a huge black population I have come to the conclusion that the sexiest, most ladylike women are African-Americans. Even yesterday at the mall the most glamorous woman was a black woman in gorgeous calf-length summer dress and high-heeled sandals. Her white sisters generally looked ugly in ill-fitting tank tops, shorts and flats. There is hosiery designed for African-American women. And it’s ‘skin-toned.’ But like the ‘racist’ connotations associated with ‘skin toned’ band-aids, ‘skin-toned’ nylons are not the right shades for black women; these stockings are for dark pigmentation & some very sheer. Generally speaking the only glamour left in America is among black women. If you want to see wonderfully-dressed women, in the sexiest shows and, yes, wearing nylons, go to black concerts or nightclubs or gospel services on Sunday.

Your observations equate very well to fashion trends in Atlanta. Offices, clubs, shows, churches, and streets reflect more feminine attire among African-American women in Atlanta.

Nylon fetish

sarkaLong time ago I was told fetishes are a male thing, women can’t be fetishist. So what about Sarka, Miss November 2014 for the italian website legambedelledonne.com (it can be translate as “women’s legs . com”)? She is Czech, she is gorgeous, she is married (and not looking) and she obviously has a fetish for nylons, high heels, masks, wet looks. Het youtube channel, Sarka Encasement, says it all

Loving the woman in the stockings

modella_in_autoreggenti_20130627_1392019014I have been with my girlfriend for eight months and have been a stocking/hosiery lover on women for a number of years (ever since I convinced my high school girlfriend to wear hold-ups about eight years ago). When I first brought up the subject of hosiery with my g/f, she told me she hated to wear pantyhose/nylons… which I took to mean all hosiery. I then asked her what she wears on her legs for special occasions when she has to dress up, and to my surprise she told me stockings, specifically hold-ups. She has worn hold-ups when we have gotten together for a few special occasions, but she has not chosen this form of dress on a regular basis since I have known her.

This past weekend, she and I attended a wedding shower for a friend of hers. The week prior I asked her what she was going to wear, and she said that the bridesmaids (which she is one of) were asked to wear a long dress/skirt. I was fearful of asking her about hosiery (in order to not sound like a pain in the ass about it) but to my surprise, she said that she would like to wear a garter belt and stockings under her dress. You could imagine my excitement at hearing her initiate that, because up to this point in our relationship, I have initiated her wearing of stockings by verbal request or by buying them for her.

So the night before the shower, she and I went out shopping, and together we picked out a beautiful and sexy black, silky garter belt form Frederick’s of Hollywood. She said that she was going to be wearing a long brown dress, so she felt tan/nude stockings would compliment it best. That was the colour we chose, and after a nice dinner together, we went back to my house, where she gladly modelled her new treasure for me. She asked me as well to help her don her new hosiery, and show her how the clasps work, as she had never done this before. I told her I did some research on the subject (many thanks to all of you women on this site who have educated us men and other women on proper donning and clasping). During the time we spent afterwards (her modelling her wonderful legs, me admiring and drooling over them!), what I thought to be an insignificant incident happened. While caressing her legs, the velcro on my watch band nicked her right leg. We saw no immediate damage to the nylon and so our night continued on. The next day, as I was driving down to see her, she called me on her cell phone to tell me that she was not going to wear the garter belt. Momentarily dumbfounded , she then explained to me that she found a hole in one of the stockings when she tried them on… right where my watch band had nicked it! I of course, was immediately disappointed, and she too, expressed her dismay that she could now not wear her new lingerie (she had no other stockings, nor the time to go buy new ones). She said she would try on some hold-ups and see if those would work. She told me I would find out what she decided she was going to do when I saw her, which turned out to be the following… Bare legged.

By the time I saw this, my disappointment had passed, and I was just happy to see her, because she looked very beautiful in her brown dress and high heeled black sandals. I could only imagine how the stockings would have looked on her gorgeous legs in that dress and sandals. Regardless, we still had a wonderful weekend together.

I also made two observations that weekend as well. All the young women (20s and 30s) were barelegged at this shower, and the night before when my g/f and I were out to dinner, a group of high schoolers from a prom came into the restaurant, and out of the 15-20 girls who I observed, almost all of them were bare legged. That really blew my mind, and I know that observation has come up much on this forum. When I attended my proms in the early and mid ’90s, the young ladies would not be caught dead bare legged at that type of function. I even overheard female classmates of mine stating that they were going to wear hold-ups. These sightings (or non-sightings!) were most disappointing to me for I long for the return of hosiery into everyday wear amongst the younger female crowd. My own opinion is that this will not be the case forever, and that like any trends, bare legs will go out of fashion, and hosiery will resurface. I remember being a kid in the ’80s and seeing images and media from the ’70s of people in bellbottoms and thinking how ridiculous that looked. I told myself that bellbottoms would never come back, but they resurfaced in the ’90s and are still considered appropriate today. I feel the same rebound will happen for hosiery and stockings.

In terms of my girlfriend, the fact that she likes hold-ups/stockings is only one of the many desirable qualities I love about her. It is her in the stockings that I love, not the garments themselves (that point as well has been mentioned before by this site’s contributors). I do not expect her to convert to a full time stocking wearer, (or even half time) and it would have no impact on how I feel about her if she were to not increase the frequency of her stocking displays. What I love most about it is that she knows I like her to wear stockings, and she makes the effort to do so (and has fun with it!).