Fine Hosiery FAQs

Many women have questions about fine ladies hosiery. This little FAQ seeks to answer some of those questions, and answer some misconceptions many people have about hosiery in general and fine hosiery in particular.

The questions listed here are answered below:

1. What’s the difference between Fully Fashioned stockings and other hosiery?
2. Aren’t garter belts really uncomfortable?
3. If Fully Fashioned stockings are so great, how come no one makes them anymore?
4. Doesn’t wearing stockings make you look whorish?
5. Garter Belts: Do I Wear them under or over my panties?
6. What is the difference between Fully Fashioned stockings and other types of hosiery.
7. If Fully Fashioned Stockings are so great, how come no one makes them anymore?



Q. What exactly is “fine hosiery” and how does it differ from cheap hosiery?

A. Fine hosiery is hosiery that is manufactured using superior quality in materials, equipment, technology, and/or design. Cheap hosiery is made from inferior quality materials, using cheaper equipment, technology and design. (Cheap as used here does not necessarily refer to price, but to the quality of the product.) There are several ways to determine which is fine and which is “cheap.” Cheap hosiery is basically disposable, single use hosiery. You find it in packages at the grocery store where it s crumpled into nearly unidentifiable wads of dark colored elastic. It rarely lasts beyond a single wearing, and if it does not, it cost so little that one rarely feels bad about throwing it away.
Fine hosiery, on the other hand, is usually packaged individually (but not always) in envelopes or boxes. The hose is folded around a card and not just wadded into the bottom of the packaging. The materials are of a better quality, and the methods of manufacture superior. They often have pretty designs, textures, and/or colors not available in cheap hose. This means you have a better fitting, better feeling hose and better looking legs as a result. The hosiery will last longer, normally one can wear fine hose several times.


Q. What styles of hosiery are available?

A. Fine hosiery is available in many styles.
 Knee-highs: These are stockings that extend as high as your knees. It’s unusual to find high quality knee highs but they are out there. Most knee-highs are cheap, single use, disposable junk. Hence the bad reputation they have among knowledgeable wearers of hosiery.
 Trouser socks: These are similar to knee-highs but tend to be made of denser, better quality materials and are much longer lasting. Furthermore they are available in a variety of colors, textures and patterns. Often worn beneath trousers, (hence, the name,) they are occasionally seen worn with skirts, especially if the skirt is long, and if the pattern, texture, and/or color compliments the outfit. May be cheap, but many are high quality.
 Tights: Cover the legs from the toe to the waist. Basically two long stockings sewn together at the top to form a “panty.” Come in a variety of colors, textures and patterns. Usually fairly heavy and opaque. Usually of fairly good quality. May be cheap. Some may be of good quality.
 Panty-hose: Similar to tights (and called tights in some countries,) but much more sheer. Panty-hose is probably the most common type of hosiery worn today. Vary in quality from very cheap, to fairly expensive.
 Thigh-highs: Also called stay-ups, these are long stockings with silicone bands on the inside of the top. These bands grip the bare skin of one’s leg and more or less successfully keep the stocking from sliding down one’s leg. Often of very cheap quality, although there are some finer quality examples available.
 Body stockings: These cover your entire body from your toes to your neck and sometimes even to the wrist. They are much like a full-body leotard or unitard, except they are made of much finer material – sheers, laces, etc. Usually they have a lot of stretch in them. Cheaper versions are one size fits all. More expensive versions will be sized small, medium, large, etc.
 Stretch stockings: Also known as “hold-ups” because of the necessity to wear a garter (suspender) belt (or other method) to hold them up. Often they are of very cheap quality, although there are many reputable manufacturers as well. These stockings are knit of stretch yarns that stretch (sometimes a very great deal) to fit one’s leg much like medical hose. Designed to imitate much higher quality stockings. Most do a poor job, although some high quality examples are found.
 Non-stretch stockings: Also known as “hold-ups” because of the necessity to wear a garter (suspender) belt (or other method) to hold them up, these are knit from a yarn with very little stretch. Almost all of the stretch comes from the knit itself. These stockings tend to range from moderately cheap Asian products to expensive Reinforced Heel and Toe (RHT)stockings. Technically they also include Fully Fashioned stockings, but those are really a category all their own. (See below.)
 FullyFashioned Stockings: These are simply the finest, most luxurious stockings one can buy. Usually made from 100% nylon monofilament they come in a variety of textures, patterns and colors. Some examples can be found in silk, or rayon as well, but they are vastly more rare, and consequently somewhat more expensive. These stockings are very rare, the quality ranges from good to the very best.


Q. Why should I wear stockings instead of pantyhose.

A. Almost every woman alive hates pantyhose. They are too hot in the summer. The aren’t warm enough in the winter. They are sweaty, itchy, and generally uncomfortable. The fact that they are sweaty leads to yeast infections in many women. They seem to fall apart when you least expect it, or self-destruct when you try to pull them on. You need to be a contortionist just to get them on right, your acrobatics sometimes taking you from one side of the bedroom to the other. And just try to reproduce that effort in a public bathroom stall. If they are too tight, they make your tummy stick out. If they are not tight enough you can pull them over your head, and nothing will keep them from sliding down and bagging between your thighs, chafing and irritating until you think you are going to go mad. Assuming you have a pair that actually survives the first wearing, when you wash them they turn into a wadded up ball of elastic that somehow gets tangled with all the other wadded up balls in your hosiery drawer. Finally, have you ever looked at yourself in just a pair of pantyhose?
Is that reason enough? If not, consider:
Stockings – good stockings – are much cooler in the summer, don’t sweat or itch, and will not contribute to yeast infections. That area can air out and remain dry and clean. Good quality stockings are smoother and prevent chafing. They are not as fragile as pantyhose. You do not need to take them off when you go to the rest room, so there is no need to twist and bend to put them back on in a tiny stall. A good garterbelt will feel far more comfortable than the waistband of almost any pantyhose. They shouldn’t bag and slide down and around if worn properly. They look better, feel better, and last longer than pantyhose. And two pair of good stockings will last far longer than 3 pair of pantyhose.


Q. Aren’t garter belts really uncomfortable?

A. When the author was in college, a dear friend categorically refused to wear stockings with garterbelts because, as she put it, of “all the straps and clips.” Of course some women may dislike them. But a well fitting, good quality garter belt should not be uncomfortable or difficult to wear. The problem generally comes from women’s experiences with cheap, ill fitting, garterbelts which seem to be available just about everywhere. (See our guide for selecting a good garterbelt.) One thing to remember – It doesn’t matter how much you paid, or where you bought it, a poor quality garterbelt will make you miserable. And there are garterbelts on the market, some selling for hundreds of dollars from top names in the lingerie industry, that are absolute garbage. One hint here, if it doesn’t have at least three garters on each leg, it is most probably junk. Good, attractive, high quality, garterbelts are available for $50 or less. If you are going to wear stockings anywhere outside of your bedroom, you owe it to yourself to invest in a good one. Put it on, wear it around the house for a few hours. If it doesn’t keep your seams straight and if it feels uncomfortable, take it back. See our guide on how to select a good garterbelt.


Q. Doesn’t wearing stockings with garterbelts make you look whorish?

A. Here is another way of looking at it. Prior to the 1960’s almost ALL hosiery were stockings that required the use of garters or suspenders of some kind to hold them up. Every woman over the age of 16 who wore hosiery (essentially every woman in the developed world who could afford them) owned at least one garter belt. The only women who wore tights, (as panty hose were called,) were dancers, circus performers, and women who worked in professions where they wore skirts or costumes that showed much more leg than was generally acceptable in polite society. NICE girls, GOOD girls, who wore modest skirts and dresses, wore garterbelts and stockings. A true lady always wore stockings when she went out. It was the women who worked in cabarets, men’s clubs and in burlesque where they wore costumes that “ladies” wouldn’t be caught dead in who wore tights.
Incidentally, this is the origin of the phrase “Pantyhose are the work of the devil.” It had nothing to do with how uncomfortable pantyhose is to wear, but it was the response of outraged ministers and parents to the general adoption of pantyhose when hemlines rose in the ‘60s, and which coincided with the so called “sexual revolution.”


Q. Garter Belts: Do I Wear them under or over my underwear?

A. Stockings and garterbelts should be the first item of clothing that you put on. Panties and underwear should go over them, in spite of what you may have seen in magazines, catalogs, calendars, and pictures on the internet. Consider the necessities of hygiene: if you wear garters over your underwear, you must remove both to go to the bathroom. Then you have to readjust your hose and straighten your seams when you pull them back up. If you wear your panties over your garters, you only need to slide down your panties to take care of your necessary business.
There are exceptions to this rule. If you are wearing them for only a brief while, it’s not technically necessary and you can wear them any way you want. If you are wearing a panty girdle to support your stockings, generally you won’t wear underwear with it anyway. If you are wearing an open bottom girdle, you will probably wear your underwear beneath that. If you like to wear a corset, the corset and stockings should be put on first and your panties over that, but that is not always possible with some modern corset designs. You could wear a garter beneath your corset as an option.


Q. What’s the difference between Fully Fashioned stockings and other hosiery?

A. Fully Fashioned stockings are fundamentally different from all other hosiery. Fully Fashioned stockings are knitted flat, and shaped (or “fashioned”) like a human leg. Then they are folded in half and seamed up the back making a “fully fashioned” stocking.
Fully Fashioned stockings fit your leg because they are knit to shape. The difference between wearing a pair of fully fashioned stockings and a pair of stretch hose is the difference between wearing an expensive well tailored suit and a cheap spandex dress. Both could make you look nice, but for most people only one really will.
All other hosiery are knitted on circular knitting machines. Basically they are long, shapeless tubes of spandex, much like an athletic tube sock. (In fact, they are knit on exactly the same type of machine.) If they have any shape to them at all it is because they have been boarded and steamed to shape. However the first time they are washed they will revert back to shapeless wads of elastic. (The results of this is the tangled, amorphous piles of tan spandex that hide in so many women’s hosiery drawers.) But in the final analysis, circular knit hose are basically athletic socks made with finer yarn.


Q. If Fully Fashioned stockings are so great, how come no one makes them anymore?

A. For decades Fully Fashioned stockings were the only kind of stockings women could buy. There were literally thousands of companies around the world that made fully fashioned stockings. These companies ranged in size from huge knitting mills with dozens of large, multi-head knitting machines, to small mom-and-pop factories with only one single head machine. What killed the demand for fully fashioned stockings was a British fashion model named Jean Shrimpton and her new “mini-skirt” in the fall of 1965. Practically overnight women all over the world were wearing the latest fashion trend to come out of “Swinging England.” Of course with skirts that short, one could not wear stockings with garters.
Although pantyhose had been invented just a few years earlier, they were uncomfortable and unpopular. With the rise of the miniskirt, however, they became indispensable. Between 1965 and 1985 when longer skirts finally made a comeback, most of the factories that made fully fashioned stockings went out of business, the expensive machines that produced the stocking were sold for scrap, and the skilled workers who made them went on to learn other trades. Furthermore, all the companies who made the flat bed hosiery knitting machines went out of business. (Fully fashioned hosiery knitting machines are monstrously complex and were very expensive to buy and maintain. No one makes them anymore. There are only a couple of companies in the world that can even repair them.)
By the 1990’s there were less than a dozen companies world wide who were still making fully fashioned stockings in small numbers. Today there are only 4 or 5 (depending on how you count them.) Fully fashioned stockings did not vanish because something better came along. They vanished because of popular culture and the vagaries of the fashion world. (Who says that fashion is has no impact on world affairs?) Women didn’t stop wearing them because they were uncomfortable, or difficult to wear. They stopped simply because they could not wear their favorite stockings, and keep up with the latest fashion trend.
Hundreds of thousands of highly skilled textile workers lost their jobs as a result of one British Supermodel’s decision to wear a short, white skirt to the horse races. And the finest, most luxurious hosiery a woman could buy very nearly vanished forever. By the time the fashion world recovered from the paroxysms of the ‘60s and ‘70s pantyhose had become the fashion norm. Moreover, since there was no internet, and the manufacturers of fully fashioned stockings were small, there was very little advertising and almost no one knew they were still being made.
By the late 1990’s when the internet made it possible to easily find fully fashioned hosiery again, two generations of women had matured without them. Today that is three generations of women. Basically, almost no one under the age of 70 has any experience wearing fully fashioned hosiery, when once it was all anyone wore, and they are still the finest hosiery money can buy. That means that the “tribal” knowledge of how to properly wear them, how to care for them, etc. that is normally handed down from mother to daughter, and from big sister to little sister, has largely been lost. Thus the need for guides and FAQs like this.