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The First Tights of the Post-War Era 1949 - 1954 |
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The first industrially manufactured knit tights of the post-war era are based on the idea and the tentatively registered design of the fashion artist Grete Knabe from Murrhardt. These tights were sold between 1949 and 1951 as "Boyenne" tights and manufactured by the company E. Graf Wwe. in Ellwangen under the trade name "Gräfin". The design patent registration from October 18, 1948 was postponed because the patent registry in Darmstadt was not fully operational yet. Due to the insolvency of the Ellwangen-based company and subsequent problems finding another manufacturer, Grete Knabe gave up the idea of acquiring a patent. An additional design patent for the production of children's knit tights under the trade name "Teddy" was registered by the company Milotta in 1952. "This merger of stocking and panties is, depending on the season, available either in cotton or wool yarn, in different colors with Perlon-reinforced heels for children and toddlers, and for young women and women, as ice-skating pants." (1952) The first tights, which were still made using pure natural materials, were flat-knit of flat warp-knit and only some Perlon was used as a reinforcement for the toes, heels or feet. They had to be sewn together in additional, costly production steps and sometimes the feet had to be connected using a different machine. Due to this, the first manufactured tights had a side or rear seam and were expensive in comparison to stockings. |
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One of first children's tights, produced since 1952. The benefits of tights are elaborately presented in this advertisement - on the one hand, as a negative example, the "slipping" long stockings on the boy, and on the other hand, the form-fitting tights on the girl. |
Children's tights made by the company Auwärter und Hilt, Göppingen, 1950's. |
Close-up: the side seam and attached feet of these wool tights, produced on a flat knitting frame, are obvious. |
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Children's tights, initially made of pure wool, were available for the first time for a large group of consumers in the Fall/Winter 1953/1954 mail-order catalog of the company Neckermann. |
The first known pair of tights available in a mail-order catalog, from the Neckermann catalog 1953/54. |
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However, the long children's stocking - often also worn by boys under shorts in the Spring and Fall - was not displaced by children's tights until the end of the 1950's, and in rural areas even much later. A first major fashion revolution - brought about by the renunciation of long stockings and the influence of the newly appearing tights - was documented in the yearly edition of the magazine "Strumpf und Socke 1952" (Stocking and Sock 1952): "The countryside is still the domain of the long, plain children's stocking. The stocking was very much in demand the last several weeks, and the sales and revenue figures were similar to those of previous years. The robust country boy still shows disdain for long trousers in this season, and for girls, this piece of clothing is rarely considered appropriate. But even young city girls are mimicking their mothers - the popularity of long trousers for adult women is decreasing, and the same trend can be seen with their daughters. Hence, the long knit stocking has a good chance of succeeding with the girls. (...) In our city, the typical children's stocking, which was popular in brown tones in the past, is now only being bought up to size 2. In this area, new competition is appearing - tights - which are found to be very practical by mothers of small children. Tights are a combination of pants, leggings, feet and suspenders - similar to rompers, but for older children e.g. year-olds. The advantage of tights is that the toddler is protected from the waist downwards, since these prevent air reaching the thighs. For older boys, the sale of stockings has become very difficult. The times where young men approaching adulthood wanted to prove themselves by wearing shorts deep into the winter and during icy weather were sacrificed to changing ideals - but a long stocking which had to be worn with a waist or stocking holders would never be accepted by older boys. The entirety of school boys was against the long stocking, and this is a much more difficult group to break through to than it would be with adult consumers. For school boys, only knee-length socks with ski or jogging pants worn over them reigned." |
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Long children's stockings for girls and boys, attached to the waistband with rubber bands, 1912. |
Typical boy's clothing of the 1950's - shorts with long stockings worn underneath, app. 1952. |
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One of the main influencing factors which led to the introduction and circulation of tights as a mass-produced article was the development and availability of a highly-elastic material for the cost-effective production on circular knitting machines - Helanca |
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One of the first Helanca children's tights, app. 1958. |
Close-up: rear seam of a pair of Helanca children's tights produced on a Cotton patent knitting machine. |
Close-up 2: in addition to the seam, the patterns on the left and right of the seam are clearly visible. This is clear sign that the stitches were narrowed at this spot, which is a typical characteristic of stockings or tights produced on a Cotton patent or flat knitting frame. |