November 23, 2009 • 17 mins
In recent decades, pantyhose were ubiquitous, but plenty of women still wear them today. Tune in as Molly and Cristen investigate where pantyhose came from, who wears them and what they're made of in this episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From House stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. Our show is
(00:20):
called Stuff Mom Never Told You. But today I'm going
to talk about something my mom always told me. She
always told me this every time I had to wear
pantyhose or tights for like church or special occasions and whatnot. Um,
I do not like pantyhose and tights. I hate them.
And the reason I hate them is because I don't
like how it feels, um, like when you walk and
(00:41):
you can hear them like rubbing together. Yeah. I just
hate how that feels. I hate how it's sad. I
hate everything about it. So when I was a small child, UM,
I would compensate for that by starting to walk wider
and wider, kind of like you were saddle sore. Yeah, almost,
like I was sort of like a evolving into a
duck or some other creek. Sure. Um. And so whenever
(01:01):
my mom saw the start to happen, she would be like, Molly,
stop walking, like you've got a corn cob up your bottom.
And so now once I figured out how a corn
cob would get at my bottom, then I was really
freaked out and did want to wear tights or hose.
And even now, like when I have to wear them,
which is rarely rarely, let me tell you, Kristen, I
(01:21):
still think, man, I'm really walking like there's a corn cob.
But my body has some deep seated psychological traumas attached
to I really do. I really hate them, and so
I was determined to find out where they came from,
which is the topic of today's podcast. Where they came from,
so that you can destroy it, so that I can
constantly vilify the man who came up with them. And yes, ladies,
(01:42):
it was a man. It wasn't man. But but you know,
for the record, I'll say I'm I'm not anti tights.
Anti pantyhose are a different matter. There's just there's something
different about pantyos. But I don't mind tights. As a
former ballerina, I'm quite accustomed to the feeling of tights
on my legs. That sounds weird to say, like the
and the man my I believe you are referring to
(02:04):
is Alan Gant. Yes, and you know, I we we
try not to mail bash. And I said, oh, he's
invented by a man, real condescendingly. But the fact is
he invented them for his poor pregnant wife. Yeah, it
was Ellen Gant was trying to be nice. Basically, he
and his wife were on a trip. I believe they
were going to New York City from North Carolina. From
(02:27):
North Carolina, go into the Big Apple. And his wife,
ethel Boone Gant, was very, very pregnant, and of course
a fine lady like ethel Boone Gant would not be
seen in the big city without her nylons on. But
back then, since we didn't have you know, panty hose
that just pull up that are all in one piece,
you had your your nylons and then your garter belt
(02:49):
I think, and that hooked on and imagine a girdle
or a girdle, yeah, and imagine all of all of
that um on top of a very pregnant belly. That
would not have been very comfortable. Right. So she was
basically like, I can't be seeing public any more until
after this child is born, because I cannot comfortably walk
around with all these things on yeah. And so this
was a nineteen fifty three and Alan Gant Sr. Was
(03:12):
then running a textile company called Glenn Raven Mills, and
he thought, well, what if I took a pair of
panties and fastened stocking Stewart and um. And so Ethel
thought that was a great idea. So she kind of
made a UM a test model of them, and then
(03:32):
she gave the test model to Alan and he took
it back to his textile company, and Alan got together
with some of his his buds at the textile mill
and they developed what they later called panty Legs. Right,
And you know from from step one, I can tell
it's a bad idea to put the word panty in
the title. Maybe that's the one reason I don't like them. Well,
not the one reason, but one of the reasons anti panty.
(03:53):
Anti So many people hate the word panty. I know
I'm not alone in that. Well, we'll get to some
other other clever titles for for panty hose um. But
they hit the shelves in nineteen fifty nine, but they
really didn't become really popular until the mid sixties because
women were still wearing the girls and garter belts and
uh all of that, And it was with the rise
(04:16):
of hem lines, in the introduction of the mini skirt
and fashion icons such as Twiggy who really brought panty
hose and tights into the mainstream right because they wanted
to wear skirts that were shorter than their garters. So
when heim lines rose, so too did sales of the
panty hose. And then that's when they got all crazy
(04:37):
with like cool designs and cool like colors. Pattern man
dex came into being um. And then when women started
really going into the workplace in the seventies and the eighties,
that was just what you wore to work. Like you know,
my mom is a Paul that I can just wear
jeans and khakis and whatever I want really to um
come in here in podcasts, while she when she worked
(04:58):
at a bank, would would our panty hose. But there
came a shift around the end of the nineties when
women got really tired of being confined in these in
these pantyhose and uh. The Hose Rey Association president Sally
Kay attributes as to a more relaxed work environment. Basically,
like you said, Molly, we can come in right now.
(05:19):
You and I are wearing wearing jeans or a T shirt,
T shirts, casual shoes, no panty hoose, no no leg exposure,
business suits. So there's this more relaxed atmosphere in the office.
So why should we should be put on uncomfortable pantyhose
to come into work? That's true. And you know, I
have to say, I was telling Christen this earlier if
I had to work in a job where I had
to our pantis hose every day, because I know that
(05:40):
there's still some conservative work environments where that is still
the norm, where you do wear a skirt, the hose,
closed toe heels all that. I don't think I would
want to work there if I had to keep that up.
But Molly, I'm gonna say for my own, my own
uh fashion preferences. It winter is coming, and not like tights,
not necessarily pannios. There's a different. Yeah, sides are kind
(06:01):
of comfy. I prefer leggings. But even though panty hos
have have dipped down in sales since the nineties, in
two thousand and eight there was still one point for
billion pairs of panty hoosehold. Yeah, so they're not going
anywhere probably not um And you know, all of that
number as well as the story of Alan Gant came
from Joseph Kapoto at Smithsonian. But when we were researching this,
(06:22):
we also found UM I kind of neat article from
USA Today and we talked about relaxed office dress. This
article went over sort of why the panty host sales
have gone down in addition to the workplace thing. I
liked this UM theory, which I've never heard before. They said,
panty hose sales have gone down because if the Sex
and the City effect, how many problems or glories in
women's life lives can they blame on Sex and the City?
(06:45):
I would like to uh, I would like to say
that I think the media over essays how much women
base their lives around Carrie Bradshaw and her Gagala gals.
But how many times have we podcasted about our Christen
comes up a lot? So maybe so maybe she's coming
out to get again because as USA did, it points
out you never saw a hose on care Bradshaw. But
even though, okay, so maybe they're calling this a sex
(07:07):
in the City effect. But at the same time, like
the characters and Sex and City are just styled to
be extremely fashionable, so they're just reflecting the fashion trends
of the time anyway, that's true. But they were saying
that because they all wore strappy sandals and short skirts
with no hose, that that sort of set a standard
as did just you know how. I don't know if
I buy this one either, But basically they're saying that
(07:28):
because now we have a lot of spray tans and
self tanning creams that we wouldn't need that sheen that
like nude panty hose can add to your legs. For me,
whenever I wear those, like like two nude panty hose,
so I feel like I have mannequin legs. You know,
I don't maybe that's just me. Yeah right, listeners right
in and let me know what you think of that. UM.
(07:48):
But they're they're also uh some things that hose companies
have been doing to try to revamp their their sales
in addition to making things like more legends and aishness
that would be appropriate for the workplace and um stirrup
tights footless tides, but they also had they're also body shapers,
for instance, spanks, which is um a neighbor their headquarters
(08:12):
I think is right down the street. From us um
is right, really big right now because it's uh these
body shapers basically like super Duper Control top panty hose
and other mainstream panting hose lines are coming out with
with body shapers as well, and you know, uh niche market,
which I was not aware of un til I started
researching this. Kristen is men, Yeah, I liked this. We
(08:35):
found an article in the Wall Street Journal called King
Size not Queen. Some men have taken to wearing panty hose,
and you know, they acknowledged that some men in the
past union panty hose might have been cross dressing, but
now you are. You know, they saw men in stores
and just assume they're buying panty hose for a wife
or a girlfriend. But apparently men have caught on that
these are really good to keep your legs warm, to
(08:58):
keep you know, your circulation. And you know, some people,
instead of wearing the support hose that you get recommended,
are wearing panty hose instead. And they say it's not
that far a jump from like bicycle luggings or running
shorts to white thermals to wearing some tight thermals. According
to this article, which came out this wasn't two thousand two,
so so it is a little dated. But nevertheless it
says it's shapings dot com, which is a lingerie website
(09:20):
offering European brands. About eight of women's sojery sales go
to men, many of whom, I like to say place
to orders, a big one for themselves and a little
one for the lady at home. But there is, you know,
kind of a problem about how you market this very
distinctly lady product to a male. Um there's this um
line called Active Skin. It used to be called Confalon
(09:43):
and their tagline was Conflans are not your mother's panty hose.
So it's basically, guys, it's okay, we know you want
to wear these comfortable, warmth supportive hose. Yeah. And in
this article they interviewed a guy who worked with shapings
dot Com, which apparently sells a lot to men, and
he suggested the they renamed the men's power skin Power Skin.
You know what now? Also, now the wind is rolling around,
(10:05):
and now that I know that some men are secret
panty hose wears, I'm not gonna be uh looking to
see if I can catch a catch a snip of
hose poking through and yeah, I mean they say, you know,
if you're wearing a lot of pants, no one can
necessarily know. But there were some guys in the circle
who wear them under shorts. Yeah, so men were the
first people to wear hose, you know, panty hose as
(10:26):
we exist, as we know them with the nylons, um
have existed since since Alan Gant invented them. But hose
sort of the rudimentary versions have been around since forever, right, Yeah,
because hose are basically, um the evolved product of socks.
Because in medieval times, uh been noble classes started to
wear socks if only to uh make their shoes less uncomfortable,
(10:50):
because obviously they didn't have super comfortable shoes back then,
and so if you had a little more money to spend,
you could wear some some socks that would be woven
by hand to fit your feet because didn't have all
of the nice stretchy materials that we have now. And
uh so they could, they would they would put them
on to a to protect their feet. So practical earlier generations,
(11:11):
those medieval nobles, and they're big in the Renaissance for men.
But I think that things really took off in nineteen
thirty seven, that I guess is really the the direct
predecessor of what Alan Gant came up with. Seven was
when nylon was invented, this revolutionary new yarn and UM
they had this big display of nylons at the ninety
(11:32):
nine New York World's Fair and it was just the
biggest deal in the world. Women were four million pairs
when they first went into stores. UM. During World War Two,
soldiers learned that if you wanted to trade something to
a lady, offering her some nylons, it was a good
way to to get what you wanted in teenage girls
during shortages of nylons during the war, which just paint
like the seam onto their legs so that they looked
(11:55):
like they were in style. But that would all lead
up to the girdle or the garter belt, which I
always thought it would be better for me, because you know,
I don't like how the thighs feel when they rubbed together,
corn pop up the butt um, So maybe I should
have just investigated. I think that you should just bring
back the garter belt. I guess I think you know
(12:16):
Madman's really in style about those ladies are wearing garters.
That's true love that show there you um we do.
I have just to finish things that are cool fun facts.
Some cool fun facts about how pantyhose are made. Yeah,
it takes about ten minutes for a single hose to
be knitted, and the legs are actually knitted separately as
(12:37):
you would imagine, and then they are joined together in
unison to a to make the final um product. But
when their first knit, they are approximately six ft long,
depending on the style and type of yarn, and then
they go through pressure seeming oven that basically shrinks them
down to the to the little hose we have on
the from the store. But depending on like what companies
(12:59):
making them might do something where that kind of shape
it to the leg you know, you can buy depending
on how much money you want to spend, you can
buy them so they're you know, appre shaped, and the
ones that have like uh lace on them and things
like that costs more. Not so much because the lace
is expensive, but it's because they have to create that
stuff out of out of house and they do it
by hand. Yeah, and they do it by hands, so
(13:22):
that ups the uh ups the cost. And with all
of this this technology that's gone into making these hose, socks, hose,
everything for hundreds of years. Now we're not to the
point mulling. This is from the USA Today article that
you pulled out that uh, we have hosts that might
actually be good for us. For instance, Haynes has a
(13:42):
line called Silk Reflections as designed to improve your circulation
and is infused with vitamin E to soften the skin.
High tech hos. High tech hos, but never forget that
they can also give you used infections. So where's some
with the cotton crotch? Wonderful advice to in that on Molly,
And if you have any thoughts on panty hose, Uh,
(14:06):
if you're like me, if you're anti panty hose with
till your dying breath, I want to hear from you.
Or if you're like me and you know you don't
mind ties all that much. So we're gonna hear from
you guys about your thoughts on panty hose. In the meantime,
let's do some quick listener mails from people who wrote
in on our other podcasts. So our first emails from
(14:26):
Tiffany and she is writing on the co Sleeping podcast.
She wrote, I think parents who choose this route are
often looked at as crazy hippies, but it really saved
my sanity. In the first few weeks after my daughter
was born, she wanted a breastfeed almost every hour, and
I would have been exhausted if I had to get
up in feeder. One product that helped that you didn't
mention is a co sleeper bass net that you lay
right on the bed. It has metal sides that prevent
(14:48):
you from rolling onto it, but otherwise it lays flat
on the bed. I also wanted to comment that as
a new mother, I was petrified of something happening to
my daughter, and for the first few weeks I woke
at every little squeak and grant she made. It was
nice to have her right next me so I could
reassure myself that she was still breathing. After a month,
she went into the pack and play and then on
into the crib. Now, except for the occasional nightmare and
do sleepover, she does just fine on her own. So
(15:09):
you can practice a little attachment parenting and not be
sick with a clingy child for life. Thank you, Tiffany.
All right, I've got another one on co sleeping from
Katie and she says that the age of the child
is also an important factor in co sleeping. I was
too scared of suffocating my baby to ever be an
active co sleeper, but I did occasionally co sleep with
my baby when she was particularly fussy or stick. This
(15:30):
happened the most when she was a newborn, and happened
less and less as she has gotten older. As she's
gotten more independent and developed more of her own routines
and habits. She's also slept better and better on her own,
to the point now at twenty months old, she won't
go to sleep if I'm there with her, even when sick,
and actually wants to be in her bedroom alone. Interesting.
Um and She also brought up the issue of uh
(15:54):
sex and co sleeping um and she said, as a newborn,
we kept her in a bassinet in our bedroom and
regularly had sex with her in the room. Now that
she's walking and learning to talk, though I thought of
having sex with her in the room is beyond creepy newborns.
Newborns are blessully unaware of what is going on around them,
so it's really not that weird to have them around
in those intimate moments. A toddler, though, is super interested
(16:15):
in what's going on and wants to understand all of it.
That's not something I really want to explain to her yet,
Thanks Katie. Sounds fair. So if you have an opinion
on co sleeping pantyhose, or anything else under the sun,
we'd love to hear from you. Our email address is
mom stuff at how stuff works dot com. And while
you're over there at how stuff works dot com, you
can check out our blog how to stuff or We're
(16:36):
Right about how to do Things. It's a pretty clever title,
and you can check out articles on fashion, parenting and
all the rest of it at you Guessed It how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot Com
(17:00):
to by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From House stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. Our show is
(00:20):
called Stuff Mom Never Told You. But today I'm going
to talk about something my mom always told me. She
always told me this every time I had to wear
pantyhose or tights for like church or special occasions and whatnot. Um,
I do not like pantyhose and tights. I hate them.
And the reason I hate them is because I don't
like how it feels, um, like when you walk and
(00:41):
you can hear them like rubbing together. Yeah. I just
hate how that feels. I hate how it's sad. I
hate everything about it. So when I was a small child, UM,
I would compensate for that by starting to walk wider
and wider, kind of like you were saddle sore. Yeah, almost,
like I was sort of like a evolving into a
duck or some other creek. Sure. Um. And so whenever
(01:01):
my mom saw the start to happen, she would be like, Molly,
stop walking, like you've got a corn cob up your bottom.
And so now once I figured out how a corn
cob would get at my bottom, then I was really
freaked out and did want to wear tights or hose.
And even now, like when I have to wear them,
which is rarely rarely, let me tell you, Kristen, I
(01:21):
still think, man, I'm really walking like there's a corn cob.
But my body has some deep seated psychological traumas attached
to I really do. I really hate them, and so
I was determined to find out where they came from,
which is the topic of today's podcast. Where they came from,
so that you can destroy it, so that I can
constantly vilify the man who came up with them. And yes, ladies,
(01:42):
it was a man. It wasn't man. But but you know,
for the record, I'll say I'm I'm not anti tights.
Anti pantyhose are a different matter. There's just there's something
different about pantyos. But I don't mind tights. As a
former ballerina, I'm quite accustomed to the feeling of tights
on my legs. That sounds weird to say, like the
and the man my I believe you are referring to
(02:04):
is Alan Gant. Yes, and you know, I we we
try not to mail bash. And I said, oh, he's
invented by a man, real condescendingly. But the fact is
he invented them for his poor pregnant wife. Yeah, it
was Ellen Gant was trying to be nice. Basically, he
and his wife were on a trip. I believe they
were going to New York City from North Carolina. From
(02:27):
North Carolina, go into the Big Apple. And his wife,
ethel Boone Gant, was very, very pregnant, and of course
a fine lady like ethel Boone Gant would not be
seen in the big city without her nylons on. But
back then, since we didn't have you know, panty hose
that just pull up that are all in one piece,
you had your your nylons and then your garter belt
(02:49):
I think, and that hooked on and imagine a girdle
or a girdle, yeah, and imagine all of all of
that um on top of a very pregnant belly. That
would not have been very comfortable. Right. So she was
basically like, I can't be seeing public any more until
after this child is born, because I cannot comfortably walk
around with all these things on yeah. And so this
was a nineteen fifty three and Alan Gant Sr. Was
(03:12):
then running a textile company called Glenn Raven Mills, and
he thought, well, what if I took a pair of
panties and fastened stocking Stewart and um. And so Ethel
thought that was a great idea. So she kind of
made a UM a test model of them, and then
(03:32):
she gave the test model to Alan and he took
it back to his textile company, and Alan got together
with some of his his buds at the textile mill
and they developed what they later called panty Legs. Right,
And you know from from step one, I can tell
it's a bad idea to put the word panty in
the title. Maybe that's the one reason I don't like them. Well,
not the one reason, but one of the reasons anti panty.
(03:53):
Anti So many people hate the word panty. I know
I'm not alone in that. Well, we'll get to some
other other clever titles for for panty hose um. But
they hit the shelves in nineteen fifty nine, but they
really didn't become really popular until the mid sixties because
women were still wearing the girls and garter belts and
uh all of that, And it was with the rise
(04:16):
of hem lines, in the introduction of the mini skirt
and fashion icons such as Twiggy who really brought panty
hose and tights into the mainstream right because they wanted
to wear skirts that were shorter than their garters. So
when heim lines rose, so too did sales of the
panty hose. And then that's when they got all crazy
(04:37):
with like cool designs and cool like colors. Pattern man
dex came into being um. And then when women started
really going into the workplace in the seventies and the eighties,
that was just what you wore to work. Like you know,
my mom is a Paul that I can just wear
jeans and khakis and whatever I want really to um
come in here in podcasts, while she when she worked
(04:58):
at a bank, would would our panty hose. But there
came a shift around the end of the nineties when
women got really tired of being confined in these in
these pantyhose and uh. The Hose Rey Association president Sally
Kay attributes as to a more relaxed work environment. Basically,
like you said, Molly, we can come in right now.
(05:19):
You and I are wearing wearing jeans or a T shirt,
T shirts, casual shoes, no panty hoose, no no leg exposure,
business suits. So there's this more relaxed atmosphere in the office.
So why should we should be put on uncomfortable pantyhose
to come into work? That's true. And you know, I
have to say, I was telling Christen this earlier if
I had to work in a job where I had
to our pantis hose every day, because I know that
(05:40):
there's still some conservative work environments where that is still
the norm, where you do wear a skirt, the hose,
closed toe heels all that. I don't think I would
want to work there if I had to keep that up.
But Molly, I'm gonna say for my own, my own
uh fashion preferences. It winter is coming, and not like tights,
not necessarily pannios. There's a different. Yeah, sides are kind
(06:01):
of comfy. I prefer leggings. But even though panty hos
have have dipped down in sales since the nineties, in
two thousand and eight there was still one point for
billion pairs of panty hoosehold. Yeah, so they're not going
anywhere probably not um And you know, all of that
number as well as the story of Alan Gant came
from Joseph Kapoto at Smithsonian. But when we were researching this,
(06:22):
we also found UM I kind of neat article from
USA Today and we talked about relaxed office dress. This
article went over sort of why the panty host sales
have gone down in addition to the workplace thing. I
liked this UM theory, which I've never heard before. They said,
panty hose sales have gone down because if the Sex
and the City effect, how many problems or glories in
women's life lives can they blame on Sex and the City?
(06:45):
I would like to uh, I would like to say
that I think the media over essays how much women
base their lives around Carrie Bradshaw and her Gagala gals.
But how many times have we podcasted about our Christen
comes up a lot? So maybe so maybe she's coming
out to get again because as USA did, it points
out you never saw a hose on care Bradshaw. But
even though, okay, so maybe they're calling this a sex
(07:07):
in the City effect. But at the same time, like
the characters and Sex and City are just styled to
be extremely fashionable, so they're just reflecting the fashion trends
of the time anyway, that's true. But they were saying
that because they all wore strappy sandals and short skirts
with no hose, that that sort of set a standard
as did just you know how. I don't know if
I buy this one either, But basically they're saying that
(07:28):
because now we have a lot of spray tans and
self tanning creams that we wouldn't need that sheen that
like nude panty hose can add to your legs. For me,
whenever I wear those, like like two nude panty hose,
so I feel like I have mannequin legs. You know,
I don't maybe that's just me. Yeah right, listeners right
in and let me know what you think of that. UM.
(07:48):
But they're they're also uh some things that hose companies
have been doing to try to revamp their their sales
in addition to making things like more legends and aishness
that would be appropriate for the workplace and um stirrup
tights footless tides, but they also had they're also body shapers,
for instance, spanks, which is um a neighbor their headquarters
(08:12):
I think is right down the street. From us um
is right, really big right now because it's uh these
body shapers basically like super Duper Control top panty hose
and other mainstream panting hose lines are coming out with
with body shapers as well, and you know, uh niche market,
which I was not aware of un til I started
researching this. Kristen is men, Yeah, I liked this. We
(08:35):
found an article in the Wall Street Journal called King
Size not Queen. Some men have taken to wearing panty hose,
and you know, they acknowledged that some men in the
past union panty hose might have been cross dressing, but
now you are. You know, they saw men in stores
and just assume they're buying panty hose for a wife
or a girlfriend. But apparently men have caught on that
these are really good to keep your legs warm, to
(08:58):
keep you know, your circulation. And you know, some people,
instead of wearing the support hose that you get recommended,
are wearing panty hose instead. And they say it's not
that far a jump from like bicycle luggings or running
shorts to white thermals to wearing some tight thermals. According
to this article, which came out this wasn't two thousand two,
so so it is a little dated. But nevertheless it
says it's shapings dot com, which is a lingerie website
(09:20):
offering European brands. About eight of women's sojery sales go
to men, many of whom, I like to say place
to orders, a big one for themselves and a little
one for the lady at home. But there is, you know,
kind of a problem about how you market this very
distinctly lady product to a male. Um there's this um
line called Active Skin. It used to be called Confalon
(09:43):
and their tagline was Conflans are not your mother's panty hose.
So it's basically, guys, it's okay, we know you want
to wear these comfortable, warmth supportive hose. Yeah. And in
this article they interviewed a guy who worked with shapings
dot Com, which apparently sells a lot to men, and
he suggested the they renamed the men's power skin Power Skin.
You know what now? Also, now the wind is rolling around,
(10:05):
and now that I know that some men are secret
panty hose wears, I'm not gonna be uh looking to
see if I can catch a catch a snip of
hose poking through and yeah, I mean they say, you know,
if you're wearing a lot of pants, no one can
necessarily know. But there were some guys in the circle
who wear them under shorts. Yeah, so men were the
first people to wear hose, you know, panty hose as
(10:26):
we exist, as we know them with the nylons, um
have existed since since Alan Gant invented them. But hose
sort of the rudimentary versions have been around since forever, right, Yeah,
because hose are basically, um the evolved product of socks.
Because in medieval times, uh been noble classes started to
wear socks if only to uh make their shoes less uncomfortable,
(10:50):
because obviously they didn't have super comfortable shoes back then,
and so if you had a little more money to spend,
you could wear some some socks that would be woven
by hand to fit your feet because didn't have all
of the nice stretchy materials that we have now. And
uh so they could, they would they would put them
on to a to protect their feet. So practical earlier generations,
(11:11):
those medieval nobles, and they're big in the Renaissance for men.
But I think that things really took off in nineteen
thirty seven, that I guess is really the the direct
predecessor of what Alan Gant came up with. Seven was
when nylon was invented, this revolutionary new yarn and UM
they had this big display of nylons at the ninety
(11:32):
nine New York World's Fair and it was just the
biggest deal in the world. Women were four million pairs
when they first went into stores. UM. During World War Two,
soldiers learned that if you wanted to trade something to
a lady, offering her some nylons, it was a good
way to to get what you wanted in teenage girls
during shortages of nylons during the war, which just paint
like the seam onto their legs so that they looked
(11:55):
like they were in style. But that would all lead
up to the girdle or the garter belt, which I
always thought it would be better for me, because you know,
I don't like how the thighs feel when they rubbed together,
corn pop up the butt um, So maybe I should
have just investigated. I think that you should just bring
back the garter belt. I guess I think you know
(12:16):
Madman's really in style about those ladies are wearing garters.
That's true love that show there you um we do.
I have just to finish things that are cool fun facts.
Some cool fun facts about how pantyhose are made. Yeah,
it takes about ten minutes for a single hose to
be knitted, and the legs are actually knitted separately as
(12:37):
you would imagine, and then they are joined together in
unison to a to make the final um product. But
when their first knit, they are approximately six ft long,
depending on the style and type of yarn, and then
they go through pressure seeming oven that basically shrinks them
down to the to the little hose we have on
the from the store. But depending on like what companies
(12:59):
making them might do something where that kind of shape
it to the leg you know, you can buy depending
on how much money you want to spend, you can
buy them so they're you know, appre shaped, and the
ones that have like uh lace on them and things
like that costs more. Not so much because the lace
is expensive, but it's because they have to create that
stuff out of out of house and they do it
by hand. Yeah, and they do it by hands, so
(13:22):
that ups the uh ups the cost. And with all
of this this technology that's gone into making these hose, socks, hose,
everything for hundreds of years. Now we're not to the
point mulling. This is from the USA Today article that
you pulled out that uh, we have hosts that might
actually be good for us. For instance, Haynes has a
(13:42):
line called Silk Reflections as designed to improve your circulation
and is infused with vitamin E to soften the skin.
High tech hos. High tech hos, but never forget that
they can also give you used infections. So where's some
with the cotton crotch? Wonderful advice to in that on Molly,
And if you have any thoughts on panty hose, Uh,
(14:06):
if you're like me, if you're anti panty hose with
till your dying breath, I want to hear from you.
Or if you're like me and you know you don't
mind ties all that much. So we're gonna hear from
you guys about your thoughts on panty hose. In the meantime,
let's do some quick listener mails from people who wrote
in on our other podcasts. So our first emails from
(14:26):
Tiffany and she is writing on the co Sleeping podcast.
She wrote, I think parents who choose this route are
often looked at as crazy hippies, but it really saved
my sanity. In the first few weeks after my daughter
was born, she wanted a breastfeed almost every hour, and
I would have been exhausted if I had to get
up in feeder. One product that helped that you didn't
mention is a co sleeper bass net that you lay
right on the bed. It has metal sides that prevent
(14:48):
you from rolling onto it, but otherwise it lays flat
on the bed. I also wanted to comment that as
a new mother, I was petrified of something happening to
my daughter, and for the first few weeks I woke
at every little squeak and grant she made. It was
nice to have her right next me so I could
reassure myself that she was still breathing. After a month,
she went into the pack and play and then on
into the crib. Now, except for the occasional nightmare and
do sleepover, she does just fine on her own. So
(15:09):
you can practice a little attachment parenting and not be
sick with a clingy child for life. Thank you, Tiffany.
All right, I've got another one on co sleeping from
Katie and she says that the age of the child
is also an important factor in co sleeping. I was
too scared of suffocating my baby to ever be an
active co sleeper, but I did occasionally co sleep with
my baby when she was particularly fussy or stick. This
(15:30):
happened the most when she was a newborn, and happened
less and less as she has gotten older. As she's
gotten more independent and developed more of her own routines
and habits. She's also slept better and better on her own,
to the point now at twenty months old, she won't
go to sleep if I'm there with her, even when sick,
and actually wants to be in her bedroom alone. Interesting.
Um and She also brought up the issue of uh
(15:54):
sex and co sleeping um and she said, as a newborn,
we kept her in a bassinet in our bedroom and
regularly had sex with her in the room. Now that
she's walking and learning to talk, though I thought of
having sex with her in the room is beyond creepy newborns.
Newborns are blessully unaware of what is going on around them,
so it's really not that weird to have them around
in those intimate moments. A toddler, though, is super interested
(16:15):
in what's going on and wants to understand all of it.
That's not something I really want to explain to her yet,
Thanks Katie. Sounds fair. So if you have an opinion
on co sleeping pantyhose, or anything else under the sun,
we'd love to hear from you. Our email address is
mom stuff at how stuff works dot com. And while
you're over there at how stuff works dot com, you
can check out our blog how to stuff or We're
(16:36):
Right about how to do Things. It's a pretty clever title,
and you can check out articles on fashion, parenting and
all the rest of it at you Guessed It how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot Com
(17:00):
to by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry. It's ready,
are you
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