I remember my mom squirming into hers. My brother (age 5 or 6 at the most)
did a parody of it (complete with grunts and groans) and we laughed til we
cried!
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Lynn Downward
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 12:02 PM
To: Historical Costume
Subject: Re: [h-cost] white wool stockings
That's interesting. I wonder which of these dancers really did invent
them... I'm just thankful that they are invented! I remember those horrible
girdles I wore before pantyhose were available to us regular people.
LynnD
On 1/10/08, Sarah Paterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In Ginger Roger's autobiography, she claims the invention.
Sarah Paterson
-Original Message-
Ruth Anne asked if anyone had personal experience with pantyhose
before
1962
and Lauren listed Wikipedia's history. In 1962 I was 9-10 and still
wearing white socks to church. However, my understanding is that Ann
Miller - the dancer/actor/singer with the incredible legs - held the
patent for the first pantyhose as pantyhose. If you've ever seen her
dance in her many movies, she always lifts her skirts so you can see
how fast she's tapping and lifts them as high as possible; she really
did have amazingly beautiful, long legs into her 70s. Anyway, she
found a need for stockings that were higher than the usual stockings
and went from there. She was very big starting in the mid-late 1950s,
right?
Time for me to watch On the Town and Kiss Me Kate again...
LynnD
On 1/10/08, Ruth Anne Baumgartner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
No, they were definitely pantyhose--like stockings but attached to,
well, stocking panties. Nobody could tell we weren't bare-legged.
--Ruth Anne
On Jan 9, 2008, at 4:56 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
My two cents:
1) My late brother used to wear men's large Danskin ballet tights
as long underwear under his (fashionably tight) jeans. I mention
the male-dancer's tights as they might fit Bjarne better -- tights
or pantyhose that are too small get uncomfortable pretty fast,
either pulling on your kneecaps or creeping down until the crotch
is between your knees. Which will be particularly uncomfy in 18th-
century breeches!
2) Wikipedia says panty hose were first manufactured in 1965, but
prior to that, there were little girls' and dancers' tights -- I
remember having them as a toddler at least as early as 1960.
Wikipedia attributes the full-body leotard (which went to the
ankles) to, ahem, Jules Leotard, who died in 1870. (The first
recorded use of leotard to describe a dancer's or acrobat's
costume in English is 1886, according to Wikipedia again.) The
tights from my childhood weren't sheer like pantyhose -- indeed
some of them were waffle-weave, like thermals -- but they came in
flesh-tone colors (like ballet pink, a slightly peachy pale
pink) and might be what you remember wearing under your marching
band skirt. They would have been warmer than pantyhose; living in
upstate New York, with its cold winters, I remember continuing to
prefer tights to pantyhose for winter wear through the mid-70s.
Actually, I prefer them today; they last far longer and usually
fit better.
-- Original message --
From: Ruth Anne Baumgartner [EMAIL PROTECTED]
As a former marching-band member, I'd like to second (belatedly)
the recommendation of pantyhose (or tights) to layer with
Bjarne's period stockings.
On a costume-history note: interestingly, I keep hearing that
pantyhose were invented in the late 'sixties, and certainly I
didn't routinely buy them for ordinary wear until '68 or so; but
my friends Connie, Joyce, another Joyce, Patty, Marilyn, Rita,
and Marcia would join me in testifying that our mothers found
them, bought them, and saved our musical knees with them as early
as 1962. Can anyone else pinpoint an earliest-available date, from
her own experience?
--Ruth Anne Baumgartner
scholar gypsy and amateur costumer
On Jan 4, 2008, at 1:08 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 1/4/2008 10:40:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
The best bet may be to layer stockings.
*
This is what I was thinking too.
Unless you want a more rustic look with the wool, I'd get a pair
of pantyhose or tights. They are very warm in themselves, but
put your silk stockings over them and you should be quite
warmunless it's like way below freezing.
The modern super-stretchy tights would be very smooth and more
than likely undetectable under your correct period stockings.
Even if you do get some fine wool stockings, layering may be
needed to keep you warm. Are there not depictions of men in
layers of different colored stockings...some rolled down a bit
to show
