Late 18th century

Stockings

For centuries, while women's legs were covered by long skirts, fashionable men wore breeches and showed off their legs in fine knit stockings. Beginning in the late sixteenth century, stockings were made on mechanical knitting machines. By the late eighteenth century, technical advances made the production of stripes and zigzags possible and these patterns were the rage in both feminine and masculine fashions. The man who wore these eye-catching silk stockings would have made sure his legs were positioned in a graceful attitude.