The incredible worth of nylons generations past! Not too much now. Sigh.

[Alice Torn]

Today, I was checking Yahoo home page, and noticed an article about Paris celebrating its liberation from the Nazis 70 yrs ago August 25. I am into history a lot, and the culture changes and shocks. I was reading, where someone who is still alive mentioned that because of lack of nylons, women painted their legs, with make up they had, to make it look like they had nylons on!! That in an occupied city, in war! I have heard, that U.S. soldiers carried chocolate bars, for kids,and maybe ladies, too, and NYLONS for liberated ladies! Wow, how times change. http://news.yahoo.com/paris-celebrat...l?soc_src=copy Can you imagine the run (no pun intended) on nylons or pantyhose, by CD's if there were not going to be anymore? Nylons were rare here, too, because of war needs for nylon. Ration pantyhose? Yipes!

[Diane Smith]

I always got a kick out of the "three pairs of nylon stockings" included in the famous "survival kit" scene in "Dr. Strangelove."

"Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5qqfsQGYus

- Diane

[ArleneRaquel]

Lovely new avatar Alice. OMG no nylons !

[Amanda L.]

I wonder how many of the soldiers were chocoholic crossdressers?
But what a lovely gesture it was back then to allow a woman's femininity to be acknowledged with the simple gift of a pair of nylons (not to mention the sweet treat of chocolate for the kiddies).
Oh what chivalrous times they must have been.........sigh!
Luv
Amanda

[nvlady]

Yes, how many of those GI's told people the nylons they had were for the "liberated ladies"?

[NicoleScott]

You mean in hard times we may have to buy stockings made with some other material? Like silk?

[mariehart]

I think the GIs based in Britain learned very quickly how grateful a girl would be if gifted with a pair of nylons. I remember seeing pictures of girls painting the seam down their legs to simulate the seamed nylons typical of the times.

Silk parachutes also provided a useful source material for making underwear.

I was born just early enough to remember when all women wore stockings daily. But the advent of the mini skirt, ironically saw their demise in favour of the panti hose. Many men not just CDs definitely regret the demise of the nylons. Stockings are seen as sexy and even naughty now days but right into the sixties they were just daily wear.

As it happens my dad worked in a hosiery factory making stockings, tights and other clothes. My Mother never went short of them needless to say.

[kellyanne]

Nylon was also used for parachutes in WW II.

[Emi_]

It's important to remember that there were different standards of "properness" in those times. My mother and aunts wore their nylons because it was what was considered the "correct" dress for a "proper" lady. Going without nylons was the equivalent of going out somewhat naked and was decidedly "inappropriate" thus women would go so far as to paint their legs so as not to appear "improper." With nylon at such a high premium due to the war, it was incredibly difficult to obtain stockings but they were still essential to a woman's sense of "properness" thus the gift of a pair of nylons was highly valued both for it's rarity as well as for it's social importance to women. Much of what cross-dressers value as "desirable" is actually worn by women out of cultural "necessity" having had their personal desires subjugated by arbitrary rules of dress in exactly the same way that cross-dressers feel forced to wear male garments. The fantasy thought-life of the cross-dresser likes to imagine the "joys" of feminine finery, but many women feel just as trapped by the social norms of our binary culture as cross-dressers do when forced to limit their choices to those of one accepted type for their "apparent" gender.