Stockings and tights for men and women

In the modern world, tights and stockings are exclusively a female wardrobe item, and a rare man can afford to wear stockings or tights.

For many of our contemporaries, a man in tights or stockings will be associated with anything, but not with a man. It is firmly entrenched in the minds of people that tights and stockings belong to women! Although in ancient times men wore stockings, they did not lose their masculinity. This was until women completely deprived men of the right to wear stockings.

The history of stockings and tights
The history of stockings dates back to ancient Egypt. In one of the tombs, along with the mummy of the pharaoh, a knitted sock was found. Then the art of knitting was lost for a long time. Only many centuries later, people began to knit again, and for centuries, during which knitting was lost, they wore stockings made of linen and thin leather.

Knitting came to Europe from the East and was carried out exclusively by hand, then no one thought about knitting machines.

And then, the Englishman William Leah Calverton, whose wife earned a living by knitting stockings, created the first knitting machine to facilitate her work. The most important part of the knitting machine was a hooked needle, which had a heel, a shaft, a spring hook, a hook head, a hook nose, a bowl and a throat.

Since there were many needles on the loom, tying the thread resulted in a number of stitches. In comparison with hand knitting, labor productivity increased several times and already on the first model of the machine reached 600 loops per minute.

William Lee Culverton showed a pair of knitted woolen stockings to Nottinghamshire Members of Parliament, who in turn presented them to Queen Elizabeth I. The Queen loved the stockings, but initially gave up on the idea of ​​equipping the workshops with knitting machines. Her argument was simple - machines will deprive thousands and thousands of knitters of work, which means they will be doomed to poverty.

A little later, Elizabeth I decided to once again consult with her advisers, they decided together - if the inventor can create a knitting machine that will knit silk stockings, he will be allowed to spread and promote his invention.

The inventor got to work, he did many experiments, constantly refined his knitting machine, and after 14 years, he was able to knit the first pair of silk stockings. True, by this time, Queen Elizabeth I left our world, and, accordingly, the agreement was not valid.

William Lee moved to France, where he met the De Caux brothers, with whom he signed a contract for the production of woolen and silk stockings, their products were very popular with wealthy citizens. The common French wore coarser and thicker stockings.

After the French Revolution of 1789, stockings were gradually replaced from the men's wardrobe by wide men's trousers. Since that time, stockings and tights have become exclusively owned by women.

Stocking evolution in the 20th century
Until the 30s of the XX century, it was not possible to somehow improve stockings, in the absence of a new type of fiber, although already in the 20s research was carried out, which resulted in the first samples of synthetic threads.

But it was not until 1939 that the first synthetic fibers, called nylon, were presented at an exhibition in New York. And the first nylon stockings appeared in New York stores in May 1940. Women happily started buying new stockings that were lighter and softer. As a result, the demand for silk fell.

After World War II, Allen Grant Sr. developed the first pantyhose model by joining a pair of stockings. At the same time, Ernest Rice proposed his own pantyhose design - similar to modern tights.

Pantyhose gained in popularity, and by the end of the 70s, pantyhose sales exceeded those of stockings.

Today stores offer many types of tights, from the simplest and cheapest to unusual expensive models that not everyone can wear. young woman... But as before, tights remain purely women's clothing.

Advertising companies offering men's tights do not resonate with most men. Some of the men buy and wear tights, but in general, in the minds of most people, tights are associated with femininity.