Leg Panic

U.S. women, who are credited with having the shapeliest legs in the world, last week faced the horrifying knowledge that soon they would have to go silk-stockingless. Raw-silk imports from Japan had ended. 0PM had snatched up all available stocks (see p. 57). There was just no more silk for stockings.

The order affected other silk consumers as well. There would be no more silk for football pants, fringes, lamp shades, fish lines and flies, tennis-racket strings, waterproof tobacco pouches, typewriter ribbons, dental floss, surgical stitchings, violin strings, neckties, hats, lingerie, sheets, pajamas, or Mohammedan prayer rugs.

In the manufacture of those articles, only a trifling percentage of U.S. raw-silk imports has been used but unless substitutes are found the pain of doing without them will not be measured by the quantity of silk they contained.

More than 90% of the silk the U.S. imported was used in hosiery alone. Skeptical of substitutes, correctly assuming that there would not be enough nylon stockings to go around, women stormed stores. In Manhattan, department-store owners had to station guards in doorways and aisles. One executive, reporting on the mob at the gates, declared: "When you opened the doors at 9:30 they fell flat on their faces."

As stocks began to vanish at a rate that would have cleaned out a four-month supply in a week, some, stores clamped down, limited purchases to three pairs per customer. Before the rationing, one store reported a single order for $75 worth of stockings.

What would U.S. women do without silk stockings? Some predicted that they might copy their English sisters, paint their bare legs stocking-color (see cut). A hopeful note in the panicky bedlam was a report of a new stocking made of cotton mesh which "wears like iron" and "looks very sheer."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.