How nylons changed literature

Stockings were once a marker of a characters class and aspirations. Then came the nylon revolution. Celebrate 75 years of sheer genius by sharing your highlights of hosiery in fiction

In his final Narnia book, The Last Battle, published in 1956, CS Lewis betrayed every teenage girl with the line: Oh Susan! Shes interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. With those words, Susan was gone, a lost cause, condemned by her legwear.

This month marks the 75th anniversary of the first limited production by DuPont of nylon stockings, and though Lewis has his fuddy duddy disdain for them, Im going to claim a bigger and better significance. Nylons (and later tights) meant the democratisation of womens legs. Until they became widely available in the 1940s, there had always been a sharp division between silk stockings and cheaper, more hard-wearing ones, made from cotton and lisle (respectable) or fake silk (dubious).

You must, for instance, spend a great deal of money on silk stockings, when for much less you could have got artificial silk or lisle thread. Why? Did not these meaner fabrics equally clothe the leg?

Just as were about to go on stage, I look down and see that one of my brand new rubber stockings has a rip in it, all the way from my knee up to my thigh. A roadie, seeing my distress, leaps to the rescue and tapes up the slash with a long strip of black gaffer tape. Looks quite cool.

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