Sheer Madness

If there is a thread that binds the mass of American womanhood into a bloc of seething revolutionaries, it is made of 20-denier nylon--the essence of panty hose. When panty hose appeared in 1965, they were welcomed as the most important advance in fashion technology since the garter. Lately, the ubiquitous underleggings are drawing the deepening disapprobation of irate wearers.

There are problems apanty: bad fit, inscrutable markings and long-distance runs. Of the thousand-odd brands on the market, only a handful are readily recognizable as reliable products of prominent mills. Among the biggest are Burlington, Kayser-Roth and Hanes. The rest, usually identified only by numbers on file with the Federal Trade Commission, are made in both well-known and obscure mills all over the country. Prices range from 59-c- to $4, and many women cannot see a corresponding difference in quality. Until recently there has been no effort to standardize sizes. Colors are often enigmatically described--as Cafe Brazil, Debonair or Nude--on the outside of hard-to-see-through packages.

Thick and Tired. After going around baggy-kneed and wrinkle-ankled, Missouri Congresswoman Leonor Sullivan has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the $1.1-billion panty-hose industry. "I got disgusted," she explained. "Some packages say they fit all, but it's impossible. You have your tall girls, your short ones. You can't have one or even two sizes that fit all. They're mislabeled." Mrs. Sullivan has a fast-thickening file of complaining letters from anti-panty women across the country.

Senator Philip Hart set his antitrust subcommittee to work on the problem last September. His investigators found that some imports were not designed for American females. Women have complained that Japanese "fit-all" hose may fit all Japanese women, but are as much as three inches short for Americans, and that many German entries are better suited for the often broader-beamed and fatter-calfed belles of Europe than for U.S. women. The committee uncovered guaranteed nonrun hose with hole-spawning flaws and "seconds" passed off as "perfects." Like Mrs. Sullivan, Hart has asked the FTC to investigate hanky-panty.

Sit to Fit. In an attempt to get a leg up on its critics, the industry has been trying to straighten out the mesh for some time. The National Association of Hosiery Manufacturers, which represents most big-name mills, took measurements from 10,000 women in order to determine the most common height-weight combinations. The group aims to get the entire industry to use the data as a basis for standardized sizing. Burlington is sponsoring a national advertising campaign to educate women in the proper way to enter (sitting down) and maintain (wash after each wearing) the company's products.

Some panty men say that the seat of the problem is customers' attitude. "They've had a preconceived notion," complains a top official of a major manufacturer, "that all the panty-hose manufacturers are dishonest--that they might as well buy a cheap pair as a more expensive pair. The consumer has become a sucker for a low price." There is another snag. Many women, retailers say, buy a panty-hose size that accommodates their lithe self-image rather than one that approximates reality.

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