Vintage hosiery ads for nylons, pantyhose & stockings from the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and including recent trends.
The marketing of tights, pantyhose and nylons has been ever evolving. Here’s a survey of hosiery history & advertising from the 1950’s to present.
It’s intriguing to observe some of the common themes:
- Gentlemen prefer Hanes pantyhose, whether they are on his wife, or not.
- Wearing sheer hosiery is a sensual experience – both in the the way they feel on your skin, and, the extra sex appeal they give you.
- Wearing pantyhose makes you a better dancer.
- Boys can wear tights, too
While some of these brands are out of business: Beauty Mist, Sears, Penney’s, Spirit by Steven’s, Burlington and Gotham Gold Stripe; the rest are still operational:
Sadly, it seems that Legg’s is being phased out at the time of this publication (Winter 2024).
On a related note – check out a compilation of my favorite hosiery brands and my reviews of them.
One thing is for certain – Everyone Loves Legs. I hope you enjoy this stroll through the imagery and marketing of one of our favorite articles of style.
Nylon stockings were a relatively new phenomenon. Nylon had been rationed for use in parachute making for the war effort. With WWII over, nylon was available again for more peaceful uses.
Still made of nylon, the sheer hosiery we know today was yet to be refined, but began booming in popularity.
Nylon is a very strong and not particularly stretchy fiber, which makes it an interesting choice for sheer hosiery manufacture.
In the 19060’s DuPont introduced a new fiber: Lycra. This fiber had many of the same characteristics of Nylon, but was stretchy, making it an ideal fiber for sheer hosiery. Blending nylon and lycra was the birth of nylons, pantyhose, and tights as we know them today.
The 1980’s introduced fresh new aesthetics, visually and musically – sheer hosiery continued to be nearly mandatory in the workplace, and popular in the clubs.
One interesting theme that Hanes relied on heavily is the idea that women who wear Hanes pantyhose will draw the attention of men – even married ones, and their wives won’t notice or mind.
During the 80’s we see advertisers being unabashed that pantyhose are outright sexy: that they feel feel sexy by how sensual they feel on your legs, and that they make you sexually irresistible to men.
All art, including fashion, ends up being reactionary in nature. Feminine elegance was still a forte in the 1990’s, but would soon find a completely new attitude. Motifs of outright sensuality and sex appeal continue to dominate hosiery marketing. The 1990’s were a glory time for traditional feminine beauty.
We see a departure from the 80’s themes involving approval from men, and we see women being depicted as sensual beings in their own right.
Tina Turner’s legs were making Hanes Hosiery look great. Victoria’s Secret was leaning heavily into their own hosiery line, and ultra-high end European maker, Wolford recruited the godfather of erotic photography, Helmut Newton, to create an iconic campaign for them.
The bare leg look became all the rage, thanks to one TV show in particular:
Sex In The City. Sarah Jessica Parker’s character showed plenty of leg, but it was always bare, and bolstered a brash new kind of feminine power – divorced from many old constructs, including, her mother’s nylons.
As consumer purchasing behavior moved increasingly to e-commerce, this allowed hosiery makers in on a well kept secret:
Half of their customer base is men…. it’s just that in the past, the gender of their buyers was opaque due to purchasing in-store vs online. Now that shipping and credit card information revealed the secret, and coupled with some deliberate googling & discovery of online forums full of nylon-obsessed men – forward thinking hosiery makers began making an attempt to market directly to men.
On that note – I became part of this marketing movement. I was a brand ambassador for a high end hosiery maker based in Barcelona, Spain – Cecilia de Rafael. They would send me copious amounts of hosiery for my own use, and tons of pairs to give to my models during our hosiery shoots. Much of the photography you’ve seen of me – and models, in hosiery, has been connected to that campaign.
After 20 years of rebelling, the trend lost it’s steam, and a return to more classic feminine motifs is making a return, with many high visibility celebrities donning sheer hosiery on a regular basis. Rather than running traditional print ads, product placement is the new “print ad” of choice.
The most interesting work at the moment is by famed fashion photographer Mario Testino, shooting for Wolford, in a series that seems to pay homage to Helmut Newton’s work for the hosiery maker back in the 1990’s.
Looking forward, I expect the next many years to bring a continued trend toward themes of traditional female beauty, bold declarations of sensuality and sex appeal that hearkens back to the 90’s…. and thank God!
