Every morning before high school, a collective swearing could be heard in the air above my small hometown in the 1950s and early 1960s, as teenage girls writhed and screamed in their nylons.
Legs old enough to shave were old enough to be covered in woven nylon netting that stopped at the thigh. A thick, ugly band signaled the end of this transparency; this is where things got serious.
The nylons didn’t stay up there themselves, they needed a garter belt.
The garter belt was designed for one purpose only to give the top of your nylons something to connect to. After carefully adjusting the toe line evenly over your toes and making sure the heels of the nylons were at the back and not bagged over your ankle, the pulling process began.
Grabbing a large piece of fabric with both hands, we ripped them off. When our calves started to hurt and our toes started to curl, we stopped. The flexible top of the hose (another word for them) hung around our thighs like a firefighter’s boot during a charity campaign on a street corner. It was important to keep that peak, so we didn’t have to start all over again.
We buckled our garter belt around our waist; it was time to connect our nylons.
The corseted elastic waistband had metal hooks two in the front and two in the back that hung down like little gun holsters for little outlaws. Rubbery white buttons writhed like turkey wattles behind the hooks, waiting to wedge the nylons between the cases.
There’s not a woman over 60 who doesn’t remember the feel of those nickel-sized pimples against her flesh. They tattooed both sides of our legs with deep circles; those on the back were in agony after sitting most of the day.
We endured them only because our vanity exceeded our pain thresholds.
It was also necessary, throughout the day, to tighten its nylons. They bagged and twisted over the day, making your legs look like grandma’s elbows. It was off to the bathroom to unhook, pull and hang up your nylons to your garter belt.
By the time the last bell rang, the elastic hooks of your garter belt had been stretched and tightened to their absolute limits. You clacked when you walked like Paul McCartney’s guitar, and David’s slingshot paled in comparison to the weapon potential you had strapped around your waist.
The speed and power of a loose garter hook, if used for harm instead of good, could easily blind or maim bystanders with a thigh flex.
After sitting all day in those sliding wooden desk/chair combos in every classroom after pep rallies on unyielding bleachers as the bus rolled to our stops on its square wheels, our thighs were enough dented to stack coins in the holes the garter belt attachments had been carved.
We didn’t complain much about the discomfort of the garter belts and nylons. We considered it part of our lot of genres in life. If Jackie Kennedy and our favorite movie stars could handle it, so could we.
Tights eventually became the fashion norm in the mid/late ’60s. We slipped into our miniskirts with confidence, knowing that no hooks or bare thighs would stick out from under our tiny hemlines.
The good old times. I’m glad they’re gone.
