Did you know that stockings have been around for over a hundred years eihgt? Hand knitted socks 12th Century are displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1589 Reverend William Lee of Nottingham, taught itself completely without any mechanical knowledge or expertise, invented the framework knitting machine changed the face of fashion, and the legs of women, forever!

The story goes that Reverend Lee fell in love with a young lady in his local village. Every time he visited her, was his passion, as all they did was, on her stocking crushed concentrate knit! Disdained the pastor decided to knit an automated process design, so that hand knitting would become obsolete! It took three years to work on this idea by his pastor’s position to devote himself fully to the task.

After three years of the stocking-loom, which was almost entirely of wood, operational. It was indeed a remarkable effort, when he was a pastor who had no formal training in mechanical, and his primitive tools. He had to overcome to amazing technical challenges – such as the first version of the machine had a needle stuck into a piece of wood! After his first machine, said a 12 gauge, and with his wool, he trained his brother James and other relatives on the use of the loom.

Queen Elizabeth was known to love silk stockings, so he traveled to London to ask for the favor of the queen. His perseverance paid off and he was finally granted an audience with the Queen, but when he showed her the machine, he was shocked when they do not offer the expected sponsorship. She was allegedly feared that the mechanization of manufacturing in this way would be stocking a large number of hand knitters socks made from the work.

Feeling rejected, and IV at the suggestion of a Sully, a minister at the court of Henry, he went to Rouen in France in 1605. At the time, Rouen was one of the most important centers of production in France. Everything was working well – he had his brother and seven workmen, and incorporated with Henry IV series was sponsored socks for the first time at the same time with no less than nine looms. Then tragedy struck – Henry IV was assassinated and this was Lee’s protection. His privileges were withdrawn. Devastated, he tries to fight a case in the Paris courts, but he failed. He died in Paris, with a broken heart and impoverished, not long after.

However, his brother and seven other workers managed to escape from France, bringing back with them for seven looms in Thoroton Nottinghamshire. There he built a mill where Ashton, a worker who had previously trained by William Lee before his unfortunate departure, joined him. This area of Nottingham was the ideal location for manufacturing woolen socks as the quality of the wool was better – the staple food or cross-linking of the fibers for a stronger yarn suitable for weaving produced.

Nottingham area has been a hub for production and storage of that date, stocking weaving an important industry for England. Just as computer know-how is now guarded, this state-of-the-art know-how was at that time – guarded exporting a stocking loom was actually illegal. Anyone who had their equipment confiscated, and were the huge fine (then) the sum of forty pounds.

In the 18th Century frame-work knitting stockings was to come to America in a swath of New England to Pennsylvania. From here on mechanization gathered pace – Patents granted in England for the first circular knitting machine in 1816, and a machine for producing full-fashioned stockings in 1857.

Stocking materials – the sexy nylon stocking was born

gradually through the end of 1800 the use of wool gave way to cotton, and until 1929 the vast majority of production was in silk stockings. Then you arrived at Pont laboratories Dr. Wallace Carrothers important discovery – Nylon! Carrothers was a brilliant polymer chemist with a rather turbulent personal life led to bouts of depression. Nevertheless, his development of what was originally known revolutionized as nylon 6.6 with its extremely high melting point of the lives of women!

At the end of World War II nylon production back into the mass production of nylon aligned. The demand was enormous – in 1945, Macy’s sold out its entire stock of 50,000 pairs of nylons in six hours!

Stocking Designs

The nylon stockings were usually variety of fully – that is the machine used to be designed to stitches, when so required that the leg is not simply a tube, but was narrowed at the ankle and extends fall to the thighs. The flat material was therefore designed to rest against the leg tightly produce when wrapped and stitched across the back, at the seam. As you may know, nylon stretch HSA not natural, it was necessary stockings in a variety of foot length and leg length production.

By the end of World War II stockings in short supply. Because the telltale signs of a sock and made up the seam, it was used for the ladies to an eyebrow pencil to create an artificial seam up the back of their legs together to simulate a real sock!

Seamless stockings

The invention of the circular stapler enabled the advent of seamless stockings, which by 1950 had surpassed the stocking with seam in popularity. However, it was still a difficult Sizing &, because they have no stretch, the stockings tend bag behind his knees and folded at the ankles with both the original and newer seamless stockings that time. That was all change in 1959 when Lycra, Spandex was also known. For the first time, a size, a large number of legs, and could be stuck without sagging.

tights or stockings?

“Swinging Sixties were stocking a bit of a problem – suddenly the world and often some of the stocking leg at the fair was closed. There was a brief time, were often used as stocking tops on the Fair before pantyhose or tights stockings, took the world by storm. But it is the sensual nylon stocking still holds the love of most men – and an admittedly smaller percentage of women. The first time you have the possibility of a fifties pull full-fashioned top up your leg I guarantee you will fall in love with this beautiful nylons.