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Pantyhose:
A Relic of the 20th Century
It might have been
predicted in the thirties, after the introduction of lastex and nylon, that
there would be no large-scale reversion by undie-wearers to the fabrics they
replaced. But, in the forties, that
is what happened, due to war-time production restrictions.
Similarly, it has
recently been predicted that “there is no reason to … think that younger
women would ever, to any great extent, turn back to girdling and corseting.”
(See “Marianne’s Story,” last paragraph.)
That surely is consensus opinion. But,
as in the thirties, there is a dark cloud on the horizon that could lead to
production restrictions: long-term,
severe energy shortages. Such restrictions could include the prohibition of
nylon-profligate pantyhose. If
stockings then became the only form of “nylons” allowed, some mild form of
girdling would return, such as control briefs worn with tabs for (detachable)
garter straps.
Severe energy
shortages are predicted in the recent book, The Long Emergency, by James Howard
Kunstler. (See: www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7203633
for an online condensation.)
The author envisages not only grave social and political stresses, but
even sporadic semi-anarchy. Probably
he’s overly alarmed. But if such
scenarios are even a longshot, governments would seek to forestall them by
prohibiting or severely “sin-taxing” non-essential uses of energy sources. And, in conjunction with such a recognition of the severity
of the energy crisis, there would be a general mind-shift against ALL
“wasteful” items, not just petroleum derivatives, for two reasons: their
guilty association with spendthrift attitudes, and their tendency to create more
physical “waste” (garbage).
Disposable
“convenience” plastic items like throw-away razors and CD “jewel cases”
are examples. Throw-away razors
would be replaced by the style of razor that preceded them: ones whose handle is permanent, and whose blade assembly
alone is replaced. Pantyhose (aka
“tights” in UK) are another example of a plastic item that wastes material
for the sake of convenience: their
wearer consumes five times more nylon per year than she would if wearing
stockings—and the total amount thus wasted nationally and worldwide is
enormous (as described below). This
item would therefore be on regulators’ hit list.
Even prior to such
officially sanctioned crusades, ecology-conscious individuals and groups might
turn against pantyhose, so a substantial voluntary reversion to stockings
isn’t unthinkable. Stockings
would require some form of gartering—which would be giggled at by the general.
In order to take the words out of their mouths, ecology could crown Lola-Lola as
its official poster-girl. In the same antic spirit, early adopters could reply,
to those who accused them of being throwbacks, “It’s hip to be square.”
Profligacy:
Wearing pantyhose consumes five times more nylon, and produces five times
more garbage (by weight) than wearing thigh-highs or regular stockings.
Here’s how the numbers work out. A
pair of stockings weighs .3 ounce; an average pair of pantyhose weighs four
times as much, or 1.2 oz. (This is
because the torso portion of pantyhose is double-thickness, and because half (?)
the pantyhose sold are control-top types that are even thicker.)
Also, a pair of pantyhose is discarded, on average, 25% sooner than a
pair of stockings, because it is “done for” when the first leg gets a run.
(I.e., with stockings the wearer just replaces the bad leg and goes on
wearing the good one.) So a woman
who wears a dozen pairs of pantyhose per year would need only 9 pairs of
stockings to replace them. Putting
this factor together with the greater weight of pantyhose, the bottom line is
that a pantyhose-wearer consumes five times more nylon per year.
How much is that in
terms of ounces? According to the
book, The Average American, the
average career woman buys 22 pairs of pantyhose per year; the average college
woman buys 9. Let’s assume the
average housewife also buys 9, and thus that the average woman (including all
three categories) buys 15 pairs. 15
pairs of pantyhose weigh 18 ounces; their replacement, 11.25 pairs of stockings,
weigh 3.375 oz.; the difference is 14.625 ounces per year. (The high-consumption career woman uses roughly 1.5 pounds
more per year.) Over the course of
a 60-year hose-wearing lifetime (from ages 18 to 78), the difference is thus
877.5 ozs., or roughly 55 pounds. That’s
non-biodegradable, non-recyclable waste—and it’s totally unnecessary
waste.
The above is
slightly offset by the stocking-wearer’s need to consume a garter belt; but
that weighs only two oz. and lasts about two or three (?) years, so it creates
little waste. (And a new-design
garter belt with a replaceable elastic back strap could be made that would last
two or three times longer.) A
girdle, let’s say, weighs 5 oz. and lasts 1.5 years; thus 10 oz. would be
wasted over three years, which is less than one-quarter the weight it would save
in pantyhose nylon (44 oz.). And,
since 1/3 (?) of women already wear control briefs, which are in essence legless
light- to medium-control girdles, a mass switch-over to stockings wouldn’t
imply proportionate additional Lycra consumption.
Now let’s scale
the figures up to the national level. According
to the Hosiery Assn., roughly 340 million pairs of pantyhose were sold in the
U.S. in 2001. Assuming about 3/4 of
their weight would be saved (after deducting for extra undies) if stockings were
worn instead, about 15 million pounds of nylon is wasted thereby.
If we were in WW2, the government would prohibit pantyhose for this
staggering wastefulness. Well, in a
way we are in a struggle—an ecological struggle.
We want to reduce needless consumption and garbage production.
Pantyhose are a “modern convenience” that costs more than they’re
worth.
(Incidentally,
about 52 million pairs of stockings were sold, about 90% (I’d guess) of them
“thigh-highs”—or “holds-ups” as they’re called in the UK.
Also, about 193 million pairs of “knee-highs” (“pop-socks” in the
UK) were sold.)
Penalization:
The government could discourage consumption of pantyhose (and disposable
razors, etc.) by sin-taxing them at $1 or $2 per pair, which would make
stockings and thigh-highs more attractive economically.
(At present, absurdly, stockings actually cost slightly more than
pantyhose, even though they contain much less material and take less time to
make. This is because they are
low-volume items.)
Taxation of
plastics has already begun, as described in Future Perfect (from the Institute
for Social Inventions, London, 2002), pp. 165-66, in an item titled “A plastax
on single-use shopping bags to reduce usage and waste.” It stated: “Ireland has introduced a tax of nine pence on
single-use plastic shopping bags, payable by the shopper not the shop....
The Irish government expects to raise 100 million pounds annually from
the tax.... To say that plastic
bags are a problem is an understatement...
The other two options are incineration (which is unpopular and polluting)
and recycling (but only .5 percent of plastic bags are recycled at present).
It could be the only way to have a larger effect, hitting the consumer
where it hurts most: in the wallet, not the conscience.”
Pantyhose were
available in the early 60s, and even in the 50s (for dancers and models), but
cost three times as much as stockings. Result:
virtually no one bought them. It
wasn't until 1968, that fateful year, that their price became competitive and
pantyhose “caught on.” This
process might work in reverse. I.e.,
if pantyhose were 50% or 100% more expensive, stockings & hold-ups might
“catch on” again.
Persuasion:
There could be publicity about pantyhose’s wastefulness, which could be
spread in both the mass media and in magazines and web sites sensitive to
ecological concerns. (E.g., readers
might re-post this article, or portions of it—permission is hereby granted.)
In particular, the Environmental Protection Agency (and corresponding
agencies outside the U.S.) could issue white papers deploring the wastefulness
of pantyhose and urging consumers to avoid them.
Second, arguments
could be made that go beyond the ecological and counteract pantyhose’s image
of convenience and liberation. For
example: “There’s no doubt that
stockings plus garter belt take a little longer to put on and take off, but the
amount of time is small—say twenty seconds per day. That’s not asking much to benefit the environment.”
Third, stockings
could be attached to a currently unobjectionable garment: a control brief.
Lyn Locke, at http://www.lynlocke.com/,
already offers such an item, which provides only limited coverage and
compression. Here’s how she
describes it (in p. 8 of her March 2005 newsletter (at http://www.lynlocke.com/download/newsletter_mar2005-lynlocke.pdf),
which also contains an illustration):
“These full
briefs are reminiscent of panties from the 60’s and 50’s. But they have some
Lycra in them, and hug the body nicely. With the attached garters, you have no
choice but to wear nylons with this garment. Introduce your wife or loved one to
the girdle in this manner. Once she becomes comfortable in this, maybe she will
be more receptive to firmer control garments. Maybe not. But it’s worth a try,
right? I sell these black Vassarette briefs at a very reasonable price.”
Over-reaction?:
Pointing out pantyhose’s negative points wouldn’t cause a general
over-reaction against wearing “nylons” at all, because there would be only
20% more material saved by going bare-legged.
What would more likely happen is what happened when ecologists condemned
certain other wasteful practices, such as buying a Christmas tree every year, or
wrapping presents in paper that was immediately discarded.
Those who were sensitive to such arguments didn’t abandon trees and
wrapping paper entirely, but switched to reusable replacements.
An analogy: if the gov't
were to sin-tax disposable razors, most men would switch to cartridge-razors.
Few would be so swept-up in an anti-plastic mania that they'd start
growing beards, especially if there were a good rationale for the tax.
Symbolism,
Conformity, and Independence: Many
women have an “eek!” feeling about wearing garters, but they should get over
it. (Or wear thigh-highs,
which—though less reliable—don’t require them.)
I.e., garter-wearing is something women may associate with the 50’s,
and thus with repression. But a
truly independent woman doesn’t let herself be manipulated by images, but
instead looks to the underlying reality. (If
she relies on images and associations, she’d let Virginia Slims ads persuade
her that cigarette-smoking is “liberated.”)
Just because garters have an image of being an item of (needless)
feminine frippery doesn’t mean that they actually are.
(Some men wear garters to hold up their socks (or leggings if they play
hockey)—they aren’t image-oriented; they focus on practicality.)
It’s really pantyhose that is needless, and it’s really garters that
are libratory, because:
-
They reduce the
amount of “stuff” (nylon) a wearer must buy.
-
They can be
more comfortable in the matter of temperature control. I.e., in summer a garter belt can be worn (one less layer of
fabric above mid-thigh); in winter a long-leg panty-girdle (a thicker layer
of fabric above mid-thigh).
-
They’re more
likely to fit better. It’s impossible for some women to find a brand of
pantyhose that fit well. That’s
because there are so many more “fit points” with pantyhose than with
stockings. If pantyhose fit
well in one place, they often fit badly in another.
-
Stockings
don’t trap heat and moisture, encouraging disease and odor. (It was in the late 60s that vaginal deodorants caught on, in
step with the use of pantyhose.)
I used another
“eek!” word: girdle.
But what’s worse about it than the spandex bike shorts or compression
shorts that many women wear? Except
for the garters, they’re the same item. The
most vehement opponents of girdles are women who’ve never worn one, all the
while encased in jeans much tighter and more confining than any girdle.
The objection to girdles is 90% symbolic.
(And feminist Beatrice Faust, in a 1981 book, mentioned that wearing
a girdle actually gave her a charge. See
http://www.girdlezone.org/bfaust.htm.
She also wrote, “Are women such sheep that we must follow
fashion leaders? Are we so gutless or stupid that we cannot make independent
choices?”)
There’s nothing
brave or independent about mindlessly following the crowd and wearing pantyhose.
Courage and freedom would be demonstrated by departing from the norm.
I hope that once a few trend-setters blaze a trail, it will become a
point of pride for women to “think different.”
“Link-Ups,”
“Hook-Ons,” etc.: For us
fans of non-vanilla undies, there is only one potential negative in this
dream-scenario (aside from
worldwide economic collapse):
A little-known method of garterless stocking-support exists, and most
women would probably prefer it if they had to wear stockings again.
An initial version was put on the market in about 1970 by one of the
major hosiery suppliers. (I used to
have their promotional material, but I’ve misplaced it, so I can’t give the
name of the company or its brand.) The
stockings came with two small hooks (like the type seen on the shoulder straps
of bras). They in turn connected to
a girdle’s garter tabs, leaving only a small gap between the top of the
stocking and the girdle’s hem. This
product failed to catch on because:
-
The placement
of tabs varied from girdle to girdle, so that one or other of the attachment
points was often mis-aligned.
-
Proper stocking
length was critical—there was no ability to roll over the welt of a
stocking or adjust the length of a garter, and stockings of that era lacked
the elasticity needed to compensate for inexact length.
Subsequently, in
the late 90s I think, there was another hook-attachment design called Scantihose
that was unsuccessful; its stockings attached to a belt with a strap, which
wasn’t too sleek. Now, however,
improved variations have been introduced, under various brand names.
In the UK, there’s Pretty Polly’s Link-Ups (Googling will find links
to ads, etc. User feedback on the
StockingsHQ site was mixed. One
user claimed attachment was less secure than a garter and the link was flimsy.
But a better hook and loop design could fix that.)
In Australia there’s a similar and more recent item, Ambra Hook-Ons.
(For details see http://www.calectasia.com/Hosiery/Hook-Ons.htm.)
Because they employ
elasticized stockings (probably more elasticized than the ordinary pair) exact
length isn’t critical, and they can use only one attachment point (on
Ambra’s Hook-Ons it’s midway between the front and side of the leg),
avoiding alignment problems, and making attachment faster than gartering.
(They’re sold with pair of elasticized panties with a loop in the
correct position. It would be easy
for manufacturers of control briefs to add a loop in that location—or for
women to sew one onto their existing garments themselves.)
If these products can be debugged, women are likely to prefer them,
because they are less visible. I.e., they have:
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No garter bump;
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Only a ½ inch
welt;
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A high
attachment point (so they can’t be seen under miniskirts—except very
rarely);
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Minuteness,
making them less noticeable if accidentally exposed (they’re only 10% the
size of a garter);
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Discreetness (no
gleaming complex “hardware,” no Can-Can overtones), making them less
“ignominious” if accidentally exposed.
That kills 90% of their appeal to us fetishists—but women would no
doubt mostly shout, “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!”
Oh well, such items
have at least one attractive attribute: wearers
strike the charming and seductive poses of yore when doffing & donning their
hosiery. They no longer awkwardly
wiggle into their nylons (as with pantyhose), a procedure that has all the suave
elegance of a footlocker tumbling down a flight of stairs.
PS:
Why should today’s New Women worry about discreetness anyway?
Isn’t that merely a Laudably Ladylike virtue?
Wouldn’t it be more commendable to Let It All Hang Out?
Why forgo the chance, by stylishly strumming their garter straps, to
mimic and/or mock the gallus-snapping patriarchs of old?
They surely had no bashfulness
about their visible suspenders.
PPS:
Just kidding—I think. Seriously
speaking, women could easily avoid garter-display by wearing culotte-style
(divided) skirts and/or pettipants (long-leg loose-around-the-leg panties that
function like half-slips). They
could continue to sit and recline in today’s liberated manner—i.e., without
always being careful not to let their skirts ride up.
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Hideaway
Holsters: The Purse of Tomorrow?
Here’s a suggestion for a giveaway little item that
could be made for under $1—or for under $.50 in volume—to promote sales of
gartered stockings and/or the garments that support them. It’s a thin satin wallet worn under a stocking top, held up
by two loops clipped over two garter buttons.
Its dimensions are 7″ wide (with two ½″ loops at the
midpoint of each wide end) and 3″ high.
It has a 7″ opening at the top covered by a 1.25″-high
flap. The latter is stitched down both sides, to keep items from falling out.
In the 60s and earlier such an item was sold
independently, and was an unacknowledged element in detective stories and spy
adventures wherein the heroine hid an item in her stocking top.
It therefore has a certain old-fashioned charm.
Its inclusion as a giveaway would strengthen the retro flavor that is
part of the appeal (to women) of, for instance, seamed stockings.
This appeal could be highlighted by a poster or on-package teaser
containing a retro-style picture of a vampish 1940s lady or gun moll, lifting
her skirt to retrieve some high-voltage item.
Here’s the text that I suggest be printed below the image:
Here’s a
conversation-piece with which to tease and stump and wow your girlfriends:
hand them one of these Hideaway Holsters and challenge them to identify it.
You can give them clues like:
·
It was popular from 1925
to 1970
·
It was used by women in
genre fiction and films
·
It held “high
voltage” items
·
It was worn, but
invisibly (this almost gives it away)
If they still
can’t guess, hike up your skirt and show them yours:
their eyes will stand out on stalks!
Then give them (from your holster) the following explanation, printed
on one of the dozen double-sided business cards we supply:
You
may have been puzzled, when reading noir
fiction or espionage thrillers of the middle third of the 20th
century, to come upon scenes wherein the heroine (or villainess) slipped her
Minox or code book or derringer or treasure-map or
billet
doux “into her stocking top.” Taken
literally, that would seem to be a very insecure location.
But it was really a shorthand term.
It meant, “into a thin satin wallet hooked to her garter buttons,
fore and aft”—a hitherto nameless item we have dubbed a “Hideaway
Holster.”
The
reason it was available for employment in detective stories is that women also
used it for more mundane purposes: To
conceal items they didn’t want a purse-peaking co-habitant (a relative or
roommate or SO) to discover, such as birth control items or a wedding ring or
a little black book; or just for carrying emergency cash and spare keys. (E.g., if they had to flee a dangerous scene without their
purse, they’d still have their “mad money” & keys on their person.)
Women wear fashions not just to make a visual impression,
but to play a role in a game of make-believe.
This is especially true of women who might be tempted to wear retro
undies. E.g., “I dreamt I was a
noir-ish vixen in my seamed stockings.”
Successful vendors make the dress-up convincing with obscure
authenticating details—little touches that fulfill the illusion. They “sell the dream,” like Maidenform. A sundae needs a cherry on top.
Seamed stockings and vixenish garter belts need a Hideaway Holster.
And a Hideaway
Holster mightn’t just be a nostalgia item. It could become the Purse of
Tomorrow, if some punk-rock trend-setters were to start wearing two of them
(one on each leg), in larger versions with internal compartments, and were to
proclaim that they’d thereby Liberated themselves from a Ludicrous Legacy of
Ladyhood.
Access would have to be (for non-exhibitionistic women)
through slits in a full-ish skirt, concealed by pleats or Velcro’d flaps.
That is radical—but that would be viewed by punkettes as a feature,
not a bug. Nevertheless, it could
also be promoted to mainstreamers as something traditional. Victorian
skirts often had slits in them, with pockets attached.
(They were made of heavy material and were supported by petticoats or
crinolines, and hence were not distorted by the weight of the pockets.) That’s why images of Victorian women rarely show them
carrying purses. Granny knew a
thing or two!
PS: If large
holsters were worn as purse-replacements, they would be more secure if
they were sewn onto the legs of long-leg panty girdles, rather than hung from
a pair of loops. LLPGs could even
be manufactured with holsters already attached.
Indeed, the provision of such external pockets might even contribute to
a modest revival of girdle-wearing!
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Renewable Bras
Problem:
Bras last only six months (according to online retailer Mr. Bra).
That’s outrageously wasteful, costly, and a burden on our limited
rubbish-disposal space. (It’s ridiculous to read about “art installations” of
worn-out bras festooned on miles of fences or strung across the Grand Canyon.)
I’ve read that European bras last a year, but that’s still nothing to cheer
about. They SHOULD last twice as long—at least.
Solution:
“Renewable” bras; i.e., bras with replaceable elastic back-straps and
non-elastic sides (the way they used to be made). A bra usually wears out
when its elastic portion gets tired. So why not make that portion replaceable?
An item like the familiar bra extender, but several inches longer (e.g., three
or four inches long), could serve as the “renewable” back. It would mate with
a bra that would be (slightly) modified as follows: It would have two or three
columns of hooks (on one side of its back) and two or three columns of eyes
(on the other side). This would double or triple the life of the bra by virtue
of the back’s twice-greater tightening-up range. Further, if the bra were
still in OK condition after the renewer-back itself got tired, a cheap, new
renewer-back could be purchased.
A beneficial
side-effect: With the heat-sensitive elastic portion temporarily removed,
women could clean the bra along with the ordinary laundry (albeit in a
lingerie bag), freeing themselves from the tedious hand-washing & air drying
that some now perform.
Downside:
There’d be two (minor) bumps in back, rather than one, because there’d be two
hook-and-eye attachment points. But they aren’t a bug, they’re a feature:
They’d advertise the wearer’s personal foresight and concern for the
environment.
Technical
note: Bra-extenders vary in the number of hooks in each hook-column, to
enable buyers to match the hook-count (typically two or three) to the
eye-column of the bra being “extended.” In other words, extenders have a few
different, but standardized, heights.
For what it’s
worth: “Renewable” garter belts could also be made, if they were modified
in the same way as a renewable bra. I.e., if they incorporated a pair of
hook-and-eye columns at the back sized to mate with a bra- renewer back. This
could double their lifespan. Ideally, one of the new bra renewers would be
used.
(Not that these
often wear out nowadays, they being mostly museum pieces or bedroom items. But
they might see a revival, if the absurd three-times-greater wastefulness of
the thrown-out material in pantyhose vs. stockings caused pantyhose (aka
tights) to be banned or sin-taxed. That is out of the question today, but it
could happen, 20 years down the road, if conditions became such that society
went on a crusade against wasteful convenience items. (As it ought to.) See my
“Pantyhose: A Relic of the 20th Century,” here:
http://corsetiere.net/Spirella/roger_k.htm#PH )
Questions:
1. Selling
refurbished bras? (Perhaps back to their original owners!) This would
probably be the cheapest way to create the first prototypes to test for
lumpiness in back, ease of adjusting, etc. Cutting out a solid-sided bra’s
original elastic back strap mightn’t be hard, and there’s probably a gadget
that could crimp in columns of eyes at the ends of the cut-off. Or a strip of
eyes could be sewed on.
2. How
should it be marketed? Start small, and advance in a series of small
steps, an unconventional method that is called for by such an unconventional
item. I.e.:
-
Approach organizations whose
members are most concerned about avoiding waste, namely newsletters
containing thrifty-living tips, and anti-garbage ecological groups.
-
Offer their leaders free samples
to evaluate.
-
If they like the results, allow
them to either sell the bras (with their endorsements) to members at a good
price, or to offer 50% discount coupons as renewal premiums. Bras would be
drop-shipped by the manufacturer to the buyers.
-
Encourage (or require) leaders to
attempt to obtain free testimonials from their membership, especially from
nationally known opinion leaders. (Ecological groups contain many such
women.)
-
Once a couple of ecological
groups are happy with this program (after one year, say), approach other
socially concerned groups with the same offer, and obtain more testimonials
from members.
-
After two years (say), when an
underground buzz has hopefully built around the product, start sending
samples for review to non-fashion magazines, and again try to let them
become part of the sales-assistance process by offering them something of
value, such as a 50% discount coupon for subscription-renewals, or a slice
of the revenue for sales referrals.
-
Eventually (after three years,
say), demand might build to the point where the manufacturer would want to
offer this item to all comers. But I suggest that it be done only
cautiously, by selling direct over the Internet, and not by undercutting the
original partners in the process.
My belief is that this item could catch on, but that it would be a gradual
process that should be carefully nurtured—and that each year’s sales goals
should be modest. That way, in ten years, a “cash cow” might emerge, with
great brand loyalty (because buyers would be aiding organizations they believe
in—organizations with whose leaders you’d have an inside track), at low risk
and low expense. I.e., there’d be no need to spend money on advertising, or to
build up a large inventory.
3.
“Renewable” Sleeping Masks & Girdles? Employing replaceable
tensioning-straps could lengthen the lifespan of these two elasticized
garments, thereby making them more affordable—and (thus) more popular. For
instance, the elastic strap in a sleeping mask typically wears out in a year,
but a mask with a replaceable strap would be easy to make. Replaceability
could also be used, with some ingenuity, in girdles that, like Camp’s
discontinued Cadenza, employed hook-and-eye straps to life-lengthen their
elastic and/or allowed users to adjust firmness.
4. What do
I want for this? Nothing This idea was probably patented in 1932 and
flopped immediately. But maybe the time just wasn’t right for it then, or the
marketing method I think is necessary wasn’t feasible then. I suspect
manufacturers might have been unenthusiastic about selling an item that would
cut bra demand by 50%. But today it would benefit the upstart firm
that first promoted such an item—and that firm’s attitude would no doubt be,
“The devil take the hindmost.”
If any
seamstress is intrigued by this, please convert some solid-sided
rummage-sale bras to this sort of arrangement and report your results.
At worst, you’d have a humorous DIY-Gone-Wrong item you could sell to
Reader’s Digest. At best you could have the beginning of a new
business.
AFTERTHOUGHTS: A renewer-back-strap
or two should be included with every renewable-back bra sold.
Current bra
extenders work with any brand of bra, at least within countries (and likely
within several countries), because the vertical spacing of the hooks and eyes
in back is standard. Hence, extender-backs should also work for any brand of
bra, assuming that it uses suppliers’ standard hook-and-eye components.
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