In 1943, an American woman could not buy nylon stockings. DuPont's nylon was going into parachutes, airplane cords and rope. So women covered their legs in tinted cream and drew a seam down the back of each leg with an eyebrow pencil: close enough to real stockings that a passer-by on a dim street would not know the difference.
What was happening to nylon in 1943
Nylon was patented by DuPont in 1935. The company began manufacturing nylon stockings in 1939 and introduced them at the 1939 World's Fair, worn by a model billed as "Miss Chemistry". Demand was immediate. At its peak, up to 4 million pairs were bought in a single day.
Then the war took the material. Nylon was stronger and lighter than silk for parachutes, and it was soon going into airplane cords and rope as well. Consumer supply was curtailed, and stockings that had sat on a shelf for a dollar were selling on the black market for up to $20 a pair, roughly $438 today.
Women did not stop wanting stockings. They improvised.
The pencil was the last step, not the first
The seam was the finishing touch on a process that started with paint. Cosmetic brands sold "liquid stockings": tinted leg makeup in cream, lotion and stick form, alongside spray-on "liquid hosiery" products. Applied evenly, it approximated the colour and slight sheen of a sheer stocking.
The pencil came after. A straight line down the back of each calf and thigh, matched to the tint, stood in for the seam that real stockings carried. Get the line straight and the illusion held. Get it crooked and it read as exactly what it was.
Why the seam mattered so much
Before seamless knitting, stockings were fully fashioned: each leg was knitted flat as two panels and then joined with a seam running up the back. The seam was not decoration. It was the by-product of how the garment was built, and because of that it became the visual signature of a real stocking.
That is why the pencil trick worked. A painted line did not make the leg look better. It made the leg look purchased.
The numbers behind the panic
- Up to 4 million pairs sold in a single day at peak demand.
- Black-market price reached $20 a pair, about $438 in today's money.
- In Pittsburgh, roughly 40,000 women queued for 13,000 pairs. Fights broke out, and the press called the day "Nylon Day" while the police called it a riot.
- In New York, 30,000 women lined up for a single shipment.
- In San Francisco, a sale was cancelled after about 10,000 shoppers broke a store window.
These disturbances ran from August 1945 to March 1946 and became known as the nylon riots. By March 1946 DuPont was producing around 30 million pairs a month, and the shortage ended.
How the seam finally disappeared
For a decade after the war, the back seam held. What ended it was not fashion but construction. In 1959 Glen Raven Mills sewed stocking legs to a panty and patented the result, sold as Panti-Legs: one piece, no clasps, no seam. It was marketed as freedom, and it was also the end of a ceremony.
When hemlines went up, the line went out. For roughly sixty years, sheer hosiery became invisible, disposable, something bought in a pack of five.
From a painted seam to no seam at all
The pencil existed because a seam proved the stocking was real. That logic has inverted. Modern ultra-sheer hosiery is knitted in the round, so there is no seam to imitate, and the absence of one is now the sign of a finer garment.
The fabric changed too. Where 1940s nylon was judged by whether the seam ran straight, our Aurora 0D Seamless Ultra-Thin Glossy Thigh-High Stockings are judged by how little shows: 0 denier, seamless, with a gloss that catches light the way spray-on "liquid hosiery" could only suggest.
If you want the same effect across the full leg, the Aurora 0D Seamless Lace-Trim Glossy Pantyhose carries it upward. And if you want the one silhouette that still keeps the ceremony of the 1940s, a real fastening rather than a painted line, the Black Lace Oil-Gloss Garter Stockings are the closest thing left to the original idea.
For the finish itself, Glossy Hosiery Explained: Aurora Gloss vs Oil-Gloss breaks down the two sheens. For fit, see The Art of Transparency: A Masterclass in Hosiery Denier.
Watch: She Drew Her Stockings On With a Pencil (1943)
A three-minute reconstruction of the practice: the tint, the pencil, and the line that had to run straight.
Frequently asked questions
Did women really draw stockings on with a pencil?
Yes. With nylon rationed, women used tinted leg makeup, sold as "liquid stockings", and drew a seam line down the back of each leg to imitate the look of real stockings. Contemporary magazines and newspaper advertising for leg makeup document the practice.
What were "liquid stockings"?
A 1940s category of leg makeup: tinted cream, lotion, stick and spray products sold to replace unavailable hosiery. Applied evenly to bare legs they approximated the colour and sheen of a sheer stocking, and a pencil line completed the illusion of a seam.
Why did stockings have a seam in the first place?
Because they were fully fashioned, knitted flat and joined with a seam up the back. The seam was a manufacturing by-product, but buyers read it as proof of a real stocking, which is exactly why it was worth drawing on.
When did nylon stockings come back?
DuPont announced a return to stocking production in August 1945 but under-delivered on its own forecast, and shortages and riots continued into 1946. By March 1946 output reached roughly 30 million pairs a month and supply normalised.
When did pantyhose replace stockings?
In 1959, when Glen Raven Mills joined stocking legs to a panty as a single garment sold under the name Panti-Legs. Rising hemlines did the rest, and the back seam largely disappeared from everyday dressing for the next sixty years.
Are stockings still made with a back seam?
Some are, as a deliberate retro detail. Most modern ultra-sheer hosiery is knitted in the round and seamless, because a seam is now a weak point rather than a mark of quality.
Sources
- Spivack, Emily. "Stocking Series, Part 1: Wartime Rationing and Nylon Riots." Smithsonian Magazine, 2012.
- Patterson, Troy. "The Politics of Pantyhose." The New York Times, 2015.
- Handley, Susannah. Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.