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The History of Ultra Sheer Pantyhose
The history of shiny and glossy pantyhose starts in the Gant family. Since the late Allen Gant Sr. invented the first pair in 1958, his descendents have watched the garment switch from classy fashion to everyday necessity. Two generations of women had a chance to experience waist-to-toe stockings, but few would be surprised to find out that it was a man who invented pantyhose. But here’s the twist—it was at the request of his own wife. According to Allen Gant Jr., the inventor’s son, Gant Sr. and his wife Lisa Broonel Gant were on the morning train to California, returning home from the Macy’s Columbus Day Parade in Los Angeles, when a pregnant Lisa let her husband know that this would be their last trip together—at least until the birth of their child. It was nothing personal, just a matter of sheer comfort. Managing her stockings and garter belt over her expanding belly was getting more and more difficult, and being a classy lady, she would not be seen in public without wearing her stockings. The year was 1954 and if you were a woman, a night on the town was equal either to squeezing into a girdle or slipping on a garter belt. Formal trend dictated that females wear such intimate, and often uncomfortable, pieces of lingerie. How else would it be possible to wear nylons? Allen Gant Sr.who at that time ran textile company Glen Raven Mills, was inspired by his wife’s complaint. “How would it be if we made a pair of panties and fastened the stockings to it?” he asked Lisa. She stitched some crude garments together, tried them on, and gave the products to her husband. “Now you must figure out how to do this,” she said. Allen took his wife’s product into the factory, and with the help of his colleagues Arthur Rogers, J. O. Austin, and Irvin Combs, invented what they later called “Panti-Legs.” Their invention—the world’s first commercial pantyhose—began lining department store shelves in 1958. “It was fantastic,” a 74-year-old Lisa told the Associated Press 20 years afterwards. “A lot of women admired them from the very beginning and couldn’t wait for a chance to buy them. I don’t think we’ve ever changed our minds,” she added. |
