It is neither clear when the first bodystocking was made nor when it was first worn. However, it could be argued that the first notable occurrence of a bodystocking being worn was in 1861. An actress by the name of Adah Isaacs Menken wore a bodystocking on stage while creating quite the kerfuffle. She was not only playing a man, but she was using the bodystocking to preserve her modesty while at the same time giving the illusion of nudity. The play, incidentally, was about a Polish man named Mazeppa who was tied nude to the back of a wild horse by his enemies.
For at least a century bodystockings were worn on stage by members of either sex to indicate that the character isn’t clothed. It wasn’t until 1965 when Warner’s brought out a bodystocking that was mass-produced and touted as “an underpinning that’s as light as a sense of well-being and smooths shape with the airy control of sheer nylon”. It’s clear that the bodystocking was first marketed as an item that would help your whole body get the same control and appearance that you’d get from a pair of regular stockings.
At this point the bodystocking had taken the unmistaken turn into the realm of lingerie and it’s stayed there ever since. Only a couple of years later the fashion scene was starting to recognize the bodystocking as more than just an underlay to protect one’s modesty from the new sheer garments of the day. It was coming into its own as a lingerie garment of its very own. In 1969, a number of memorable things happened – Midnight Rider was released with an X rating, Robert Kennedy’s assassin was given the death penalty, Yasser Arafat was born, Apollo 10 reached lunar orbit and the Russian Space Program landed a probe on Venus.
While ‘officially’ becoming a mainstay in the world of lingerie and women’s closets and drawers everywhere may not be as world shaking and all important as some of the other things have proven to be, it was still something remarkable. In the world of fashion many things come and go and it’s relatively rare for certain things to stick around like the bodystocking has. From that point forward, bodystockings were no longer hosiery for your body only. Now they were moving toward those types that you can get today – sleek, sexy, functional, and utterly gorgeous.
Very few garments that are designed to entice and create a sense of allure in a person’s partner do the job as well as a corset, but a bodystocking certainly comes close and they certainly cost a whole lot less. While a corset offers the ultimate in mystery due to its reshaping qualities, a bodystocking hides the skin and what’s beneath, obscuring it in mystery and tantalizing allure. You can almost see what’s beneath, but not quite. So, from a stage prop to lingerie in a relatively short hundred year span isn’t bad for such a simple, understated garment.
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