I was walking through a quiet neighbourhood the other day – one of those places with proper gardens and actual washing lines – when it struck me: not a single stocking in sight. Sheets, yes. Towels, plenty. The occasional sensible pair of knickers. But stockings? Not one.
It wasn’t always this way.
There was a time, not so terribly long ago, when stockings were part of the everyday domestic landscape. You’d see them everywhere: dancing on washing lines in the afternoon breeze, draped elegantly over radiators in winter, hanging from the shower rail in the bathroom. They were as ordinary as tea towels, as unremarkable as socks. Every household had them drying somewhere.
“A stocking on a radiator told you something about the woman who lived there. It said: she takes care of things. She makes an effort.”
I rather liked that visibility. A pair of stockings drying on a line was a small, quiet signal. It said: a woman lives here. A woman who wears proper hosiery. A woman who bothers. There was something cheerful about it, something unapologetically feminine. Stockings fluttering in the garden were like little flags of womanhood, and nobody thought twice about them.
Inside the house, too, stockings had their place. The radiator in the bedroom, with a towel laid over it to protect the nylon from direct heat. The bathroom, where they’d hang from the rail or over the edge of the bath. Visitors would see them – the meter reader, the repair man, the neighbours popping round for coffee – and nobody batted an eyelid. It was simply how things were.
And now? Now we hide them away. Those of us who still wear stockings dry them discreetly on little racks in the bathroom, behind closed doors. We wouldn’t dream of pegging them on the outdoor line where anyone might see. It would feel somehow… exhibitionist. As if we were making a statement rather than simply doing the laundry.
How strange that something so ordinary became something so private.
“We’ve hidden our stockings away along with so much else – the rituals, the effort, the small daily acts of feminine care.”
Part of it, of course, is simply that fewer women wear stockings now. The washing lines are bare because the underwear drawers are bare. Tights came along, and then bare legs became acceptable, and now athleisure rules the world. The stockings have vanished from the line because they’ve vanished from the legs.
But I suspect there’s more to it than that. We’ve become oddly embarrassed about the mechanics of femininity. The effort that goes into looking nice, the rituals of self-care – we’re supposed to pretend these things don’t exist, or that they happen effortlessly, invisibly. A stocking on a radiator admits too much. It says: this takes work. This takes time. This is deliberate.
And perhaps that’s what we’ve really lost. Not just the stockings themselves, but the unapologetic visibility of feminine effort. The willingness to let the world see that we bother, that we care, that we take the time to wear something beautiful and then take the time to care for it properly.
I still hang my stockings to dry, of course. On a little rack in the bathroom, like everyone else. But sometimes, on a warm day, I’m tempted to peg them on the line outside and let them flutter in the breeze for all the world to see. A small act of defiance. A tiny flag planted for the women who still make the effort.
Perhaps I will, one of these days. The neighbours can think what they like.
Do any of you still dry your stockings where others might see them? Or have we all retreated behind closed doors? I’d love to know.
