Seamed stockings

[getonwithit]

When were stockings first made without seams in the 50 s. ?

[getonwithit]

My mother thinks about 1963 she is 70 now and says from what she could remember early 60s

[DTCwordfan]

Now we have a thread.

Bet there is heck of a ladder by the end of the evening and, no doubt, a few suspenders from the Ed.

[Euphemia]

I too seem to remember the arrival of "nylons" with no seams in the 60s.

[DTCwordfan]

http://www.oldnylons.com/history_of_nylon.htm

[carolegif]

Seamed stocking were around before WW2. I know this because stockings were a luxury in the war and to hide bare legs, my Mum used to colour her legs with gravy browning and draw a 'seam' down the back of her leg with her eye pencil to look like seam!

[horseshoes]

I remember my Mum buying some Margaret Rose seamed stockings in 1964 so let's say 63/64. I don't think OP means those sort of stockings Trim. I think she's probably talking about nylon stockings.

[hc4361]

The question is - without seams, not with

[horseshoes]

Lol Trim

[mike11111]

Seamed stockings used to turn me on when I was a young lad. Slightly uncomfortable to wear, though.

[Euphemia]

Less so than tights, Mike11111?

[mike11111]

Very true. My mother would never let me have a pair of winklepickers because she said they were dead common. She wasn't best pleased when the police brought me home one night wearing a pair of her red stilettos.

[cc1]

I recall my Saturday job in the mid 60s and people had to ask for seamless to differentiate from seamed, tights were just coming in but were unbelievably expensive.

[Mosaic]

I'd echo 1964, same as the arrival of the 'shift dress' which was sold in Courtelle at Marks n Spencers and of which my mum bought two. Seamed legwear was deemed old-fashioned and not at all sexy then - ever-shorter hemlines and all-over pattern or lace tights in thicker nylon became availiable in ladies sizes. They had been available for little girls for some years prior. I remember asking my mum why they didn't make ladies stockings 'like tights' and she said it would get in the way of your corset - because every woman wore a corset up to around the commencement of the age of tights.
The thing about the 'shift dress' and other waistless fashions was that wearing the girdle-type corset just pushed your fat up higher, making a bump appear in the middle, so tights and no waist were partners in fashion.
And the thing about not weariing 'shapewear' is no matter what benefits people say they have / had, it's just nicer not to wear that stuff all the time. So tights were born, seams were abandoned, and stockings entered the realm of fetishism.
Will the same ever happen to lycra leggings?

[Anngel123]

1959 or 65 depending which site you look at.

[heathfield]

Actually, seamless stockings have existed for hundreds of years. Originally, they were simply knitted 'in the round'.

[Mosaic]

yes heathfield - I think that's what Trimmie was saying in his own way... but the difference comes in when they are 'seen'. Thick clumpy stockings knitted in the round were for the poor, whereas stylish poeple wanted embellishments such as a seam, and details on the ankles and sides ('clocks').
This thread actually opens discussion of the fascinating dynamic between what is fashionable, what is risque, and what is respectable, and how the respectable becomes the risible etc etc.
So a woman in 1950s UK who did not display a nice straight seam would be less than respectable....whereas in 2011 she's a bit kinky....