Essential dress items, providing modesty, warmth and comfort, are the leg- and foot-coverings worn by both sexes since ancient times and = known as hose, stockings or socks. Throughout history, in general the wealthier and higher ranking the wearer, the finer quality and better-fitting their hose or stockings, while, conversely, going barefoot has always symbolised poverty and humility.

Colourful knitted woollen ‘Coptic socks’ surviving from the Romano-Egyptian period (2nd-5th centuries) feature divided toes, suitable for wearing with sandals. In colder European climates woven woollen or linen fabric hose or stockings were often cross-gartered up the calf with narrow cloth or leather bindings – visible below men’s short tunics, hidden beneath ladies’ long gowns. From the 1500s finer knitting needles resulted in knitted hose superseding the traditional woven cloth variety, the hosiery industry advancing further with the invention of the stocking knitting frame in 1589. Stretchy knitted stockings in superior woollen or silk yarn were more elegant than unshaped woven fabric and Elizabethan and Jacobean courtiers strutted peacock-like in vibrant silk stockings ornamented with embroidered and spangled ‘clocks’. Special wide-topped boot hose lined the dashing cavalier boots of the following decades but as shoes dominated fashion in the later 1600s and 1700s well-fitting stockings formed part of the co-ordinated Georgian suit, both men’s and ladies’ stockings being secured with a ribbon garter just below or above the knee.

When cotton yarn became available in Britain from the late-1700s, plain cotton stockings grew popular, while fine cotton lace-knit styles were fashionable luxuries. Another innovation, elastic, improved fit and support from the 1840s, also being used for stocking garters, while bright scarlet stockings glimpsed beneath the swaying crinoline hems of ladies’ walking dresses were a 1860s mode. From c1880 traditional garters began to be replaced by ladies’ stockings and men’s sock suspenders, corsets incorporating suspenders from 1883. Women’s black woollen or cotton lisle stockings were usual for winter, white for summer, occasionally coloured for evening wear. The finest stockings were of silk, but rayon (artificial silk) was a cheap alternative from the 1920s, when flesh-toned stockings also developed as rising hemlines exposed the lower legs. Nylon was invented c.1938 and during WW2 when stockings were scarce, some British women obtained nylon stockings from American GIs. Separate stockings were worn with suspender belts until modern nylon panty hose or step-in tights were developed in the 1960s.