Barelegged or Hose?

Yesterday as I was perusing my followed blog list, I ran across a survey that I had voted on last week. I usually don't make a comment when looking around, and if I do comment is is a very short snippet of conversation because I am too lazy to spend much time on comment forms, but I will often take the 3 seconds to check a voting box and SUBMIT key.
Anyhow, now is the time that I have to admit I have started following a blog called "What Kate Wore."

I am slightly intrigued that the now famous Princess Kate is wearing dresses that are generally modest and classy, and I really like that because perhaps the fashion world will begin to make lower priced modest dresses for me and mine. 

Well the poll was all about her hosiery, or as the English call them "tights" and whether or not people might start wearing them again now that they see them on her.
All the comments were about being a throwback to the 80's and I thought,
 "It was way more than a style of the 80's that we were referring to."


I remember my mother talking about drawing a line down the back of their legs when nylon's were hard to come by during WWII and that they tried to fool people by making a fake seam down the back of a womans leg with eyebrow pencils. Apparently nylons made, out of the miracle new fabric, had just been on the market starting May 15, 1940 and were quickly a huge success selling 64 million pairs within the first year.


Women started wearing the far more comfortable panty hose in the 60's. Spandex had been introduced in 1959 and the extra stretchy bounce of that material made nylons fit much better and being able to lose all of the other undergarments and just wear nylons up to the waist was a much more comfortable fashion.
Skirts became shorter probably because of the new pantyhose. (I had never thought about this before, but it totally makes sense to me)

I have 2 personal childhood stories about nylons. 

1.   When I was in 6th grade my mother bribed me by letting me buy nylons if I would choose the lower healed dress shoe. I gave in and felt older even without the higher heel.

2.  When I was in 7th grade, the same cute mother let me buy a garter belt and 3 pairs of colored opaque stockings to wear with my various school dresses. I thought it was really cool to be able to wear an old fashioned garter belt that had hooks on it to attach the thigh high stockings, but now that I think about it, perhaps that was to prevent me from hiking my skirts up too high as the fashions were very mini in 1970. 

That Joyce Kelly was one smart (or tricky) mother.

Okay, now for the purpose of my post.
As I was polling about nylons, I was reminded about an older woman at my church now, who is prone to ask me inappropriate questions from time to time.


Example: "Did you know that that style of skirt makes your back side look wider than it actually is?"
Yes, she really said that to me a few years back.


Another time she asked, "When was it that you decided it was okay not to wear stockings to church?"
(I should have answered with, "When was it that you decided that tacky and rude were going to be part of your personality?")
This is the question I was thinking about as I read the article. Apparently I was not the only woman who had decided it wasn't necessary to wear "stockings" to church.


FYI, I have modified my stocking wearing the past few years. During the cooler months I wear them and the warmer months I don't. 


I am unsure what the rest of the fashion world will do, but for now that is my decision, and I'm sticking to it.