i decided to read a brief biography of the creator in his honour because he literally invented the one article of clothing that i arguably wear every single day. in a sense, i owe my entire girly fa$hun world to him. if stockings were still made of silk, they'd be a) extremely fragile, b) weirdly slippery, & c) far more expensive. i would not be able to indulge in tights every day - hello, levi strauss. actually, i felt ignorant when i was surprised to learn that tights were made of silk in the first place. the history of the invention of nylon makes absolutely perfect sense. wallace hume carothers, (what a name, huh?), a man educated in iowa & illinois who became a professor & researcher @ harvard, had been "experimenting with chemical structures of polymers with high molecular weight". in 1928 e.i. dupont de nemours & company brought him to work on articifial polymers, where he "investigated the structure of substances of high molecular weight and their formation by polymerization".
@ this time, because of world war II, america's relationship with japan was not stable enough to sustain the regular, affordable silk demanded in the united states. the promising material carothers & his team invented was first marketed as an alternative form of toothbrush bristle. (alternative to animal hair. what?..........uh, anyway.....) DuPont's announcement of nylon's invention in 1938 explained that nylon was, quote: "the first man-made organic textile fabric prepared entirely from new materials from the mineral kingdom." a year later, nylon stockings were worn by women @ the world's fair, & in 1940 they were put on the market. they were extraordinarily successful. so here i am, wearin' tights!
nylon stockings is not an unwavering market product - women are far less inclined to wear dresses & skirts frequently nowadays because of the advent of contemporary gender roles & the obsession with comfort & casuality to which denim caters. however, nylon stockings will always be a valuable product, because of the product's simplicity, effective cost, possible variations, & its ability to meet very basic but worldwide needs, be it for costuming or for dressing(-up).
all in all, i commemorate carothers & his team of researchers for their creation. i owe them my entire closet.
carothers is also celebrated for his knowledge of the formation of natural polymers & his work that led to the creation of synthetic rubber. his work launched scientists in america into research of synthetic materials which has given us most of the things we touch & own today.
photo 1: 1940
photo 2: 1971
i went looking for a 1969 ad for leggs tights & found..................... this.
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