The Tights Site

 Before we begin the History of Tights lets start with a good definition of what tights are: The National Association of Hosiery Manufacturers describes Tights (known as pantyhos as the USA) as sheer close fitting coverings of the body from the waist to the feet, most frequently worn by women. Like stockings they are usually made of nylons. The one-piece Tights/Pantyhose garments appeared in the 1960s and provided a convenient alternative to stockings (nylons).   

THE HISTORY OF TIGHTS The elegancy, sheer and comfortable Tights/Pantyhose and Stockings we now take for granted, only date back as far as the 1960’s, frequently refered to as “nylons” because of the material there are made from.  But like everything else Tights/Pantyhose are just the lates stage in the History of leg-coverings.  Leg-coverings were wore to protect the legs from the elements.  Once some degree of protection had been achieve thoughts move to the look of the garment.  What may surprise some is that although tights and stocking, refered to as hose, were wore by man and women it was men’s legs that were on display as social norms dictated that women wore long dresses.  It was a well-turned male leg and calf that was much admired.  It would appear from this information that Men in tights are not a new trend, but merely a re-invention of an old practice.

To trace the history of tights lets starte with the word hosiery, which is derive from the Anglo-Saxon words hosa, meaning "tight-legged trouser," and the word stocking derives from stoka, meaning "stump" When the upper part of a trouser leg was cut off, the remaining stoka became "stocking," and hosa became "hosiery." Sheer stockings and hose were worn as separate leg and foot coverings, until after World War II.   So footless tights are not a new idea, merely another  re-invention.  Fashion designers began to attach panties to stockings, creating a comfortable form of hosiery. As you can image, comfort was very popular with women after the suspender belt need to wear stockings.  The result was an immediate declining in the sales of  stockings, with a a corresponding rise in the sale of tights.

Lets get back to the early years of stockings to follow the development which lead to moden tights/pantyhose.  There are few really early references to women's hosiery.  The the social norms thoughout most of history were for women to wear long dresses/skirts.   Any public mention of women's legs was considered to be improper.  The first extant discussion of a garment resembling today's pantyhose concerns the "tight-fitting hose" young Venetian men wore beneath short jackets during the fourteenth century. Made from silk, these leggings were often brightly coloured and embroidered; older Venetians considered them extremely  immodest. Is this ringing any bells with anyone.  Some would say that we have come full circle.  But thats what makes history interesting, nothing is new. 

One of the earliest mentions of women wearing stockings appears in the records of Queen Elizabeth I, whose "silk woman" presented her with a pair of knitted black silk stockings. Admiring their softness and comfort, the Queen requested more, and wore only silk stockings for the rest of her life.

The next big development in the History/development of tights came in 1589 when the Reverend William Lee attempted to patent the first kitting machine, which allowed stockings to be made from wool, silk and cotton.  Queen Elizabeth denied his request; in her view the coarse stockings produced by Lee's machine were inferior to the silk hose she had shipped from Spain. Taking these comments onboard Lee improved his machine, enabling it to manufacture softer stockings, but Elizabeth's successor, James I, also denied his second patent application on the grounds that, the machine would endanger the livelihood of English hand knitters. After Lee's death, his brother built a framework kitting machine that remained the best for several hundred years. 

William Cotton made the next great advance in the history of tights when he invented the first automated knitting machine in 1864; he incorporated the key features of Lee's design, notably the spring-beard needle that is still used in many contemporary knitting machines. Named for the fine, open hook that projects from the needle at an angle like that of the hair in a man's beard, the spring-beard needle must be used with a pressing device to close the hook as it forms a loop. This type of needle is ideal for hosiery because it produces smaller loops and, consequently, a finer weave. Cotton's straight-bar machine created flat sheets of fabric using a weft  stitch whereby a continuous yarn was fed to needles that sewed back-and-forth horizontal rows. By increasing or reducing the number of needles used to knit different portions of a stocking, workers could vary the thickness of the garment: more needles produced thicker fabric. Stitching began at the top of the stocking with a welt, or thick strip to which women could attach garters. To accommodate the feet and ankles, the stocking fabric was thinned at the bottom, although the fabric at the heel remained thick, for cushioning.  After it was removed from Cotton's machine, the fabric was manually shaped and seamed up the back to produce so-called full-fashioned stockings.

Also produced during the mid-nineteenth century, the first seamless stockings were made on circular machines that knitted tubes of fabric to which separate foot and toe pieces were subsequently attached. Although these stockings were more attractive in that they featured no visible seams, they bagged at the knees and ankles because circular machines could not add or drop stitches like the Lee and Cotton machines.

The History of tights made a major step forward in the early 20th Century women’s skirt remain long, and silk stocking for women were expenses, and out of the reach of the average women to wear on a daily basis.  But gradually it became socially acceptable for women to show off their legs, with the revolutionary nylon stoking in the 1930s.  Nylon was an affordable alternative to silk.  In 1935 Julian Hill, working with a team led by Wallace Carothers, discovered that by pulling a heater rod from a mixture of coal tar, water and alcohol a strong, sheer filament formed that was silk-like in appearance.   

Two years later DuPont patented the process, and in 1939 the new synthetic fibre “Nylon” was shown at the World Trade Fair in New York:  the NY from New York, provided the first two letters of the name nylon.

The first nylon stockings appeared in New York stores on May 15, 1940 and over 780,000 pairs were sold in the first day alone.

In the first year, 64 million pairs were sold in the US, and nylons soon became the generic name for all hosiery products containing nylon. At the time that nylon was invented only stockings existed. Nylons did not stretch and so came in various sizes.

Due to the use of nylon in World War II, nylon stockings became very hard to obtain - so women as usual used their imagination and practicality and painted seams on the back of their legs to look as if they were wearing stockings. When the war ended and nylon was once again available for consumer uses, most women returned to nylon stockings.