Hose By Any Other Name…

It all started quite innocently.  I was at my college, Bob Jones University, where the normal dress code for men is to wear a shirt and tie the whole morning, and for women to wear skirts/dresses with stockings all day.

The preacher was trying to make a point about the difference between what’s on the outside and on the inside, and so he had every male in the room take off their tie, and then said, “And ladies…”  They all laughed.

The History of Leggings

This is one of the reasons that I started to puzzle over stockings, hose, tights, or leggings.  Why is it considered proper for women to wear them, and are bare legs less modest?

What’s interesting is that, if you look back in history, it hasn’t always been females that have worn stockings:

Leggings in various forms and under various names have been worn for warmth and protection by both men and women throughout the centuries. The separate hose worn by men in Europe from the 14th to 16th centuries (the Renaissance period) were a form of leggings, as are the trews of the Scottish Highlands. Separate leggings of buckskin leather were worn by some Native Americans; These were adopted by some Long Hunters, French fur trappers, and later by mountain men. They are the leatherstockings of James Fenimore Cooper‘s Leatherstocking Tales. The Buckskins, however were mostly a dull grey brain-tan, not the bright, glossy vegetable tanned leather we so commonly see today. It was also common for leggings to be made of light wool.

Cowboys wore leggings of buckskin to protect from chapping caused by riding, wear and tear to their pants, and bites from such animals as snakes or insects in the scruff such as ticks.

Now, however, women are more often found to wear leggings than men.

Tights Today

Today you see tights mostly under skirts or dresses—sometimes under what I would consider as long shirts.  Sometimes they are worn to try to compliment the outfit, and sometimes instead of pants!

But for the most part, I believe that most women wear stockings in a formal way to color their legs—whether it’s a crazy color like the one in the photo above, to a more nude shade that doesn’t seem to do much more than soften the lines.

This past Sunday I saw a lady wearing a black pair of stockings with white lines that formed a pattern—which was kinda interesting.

Modest?

On the one hand, I would say that it is more modest.  Seeing bare legs is more of a problem, I think, thank seeing one that is covered.  However, I can also see where stockings could show the shape of the legs or draw attention if the right colors aren’t chosen.

There are certain stockings—like the ones that are pictured on the right—that are purely designed to draw sexual attention.  These stockings are not what you should wear in public.

While there are rumors of other stocking colors meaning certain things, nothing says the wrong things about yourself as wearing fishnet stockings.

Of course, this is one of those things that it would be fine to wear in the privacy of your home with your husband, but not in public.