[Avodah] Tznius

[Prof. Levine]

At 08:53 PM 6/19/2011, Rn T. Katz wrote:

>Personally I wish we could all just be normal, wear skirts below the
>knee and not wear stockings at all except when we want to look dressy.

WADR, given the following from page 72 of the sefer at 
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/areivim/covering_body.pdf

"It is, however, the general practice of women in many Jewish 
communities to wear stockings."

there would seem to be many who would disagree with your standard of normal.


>And did women's stockings or socks even exist back then? They certainly
>didn't have nylon or polyester, I guess they could have made socks from
>wool, but did they? Does the Gemara ever talk about women (or men)
>wearing socks or stockings?

The following is from http://tinyurl.com/4ytyetg

Did you realize that women's stockings have been around for hundreds 
of years? It is generally agreed that they were extremely popular 
going back all the way to the early 16th century but there are some 
that say they go all the way back to ancient Egypt. These early 
stockings were not really stockings at all but more like the 
forerunners of panty hose as they were all together one garment. What 
we are covering in this article are actual stockings that end at the 
upper thigh and are usually held up by garter belts.

The first stockings that were made in the early 16th century were 
very think and not very elastic at all and were handmade by knitting. 
With the advent of the fabric industry becoming more diverse with the 
introduction of different fabrics like wool, nylon, cotton, and silk 
the stockings began to be made from more different blends. Towards 
the end of the century William Lee who was a member of the clergy 
came up with the first knitting machine which resulted in the mass 
production of hosiery, especially those made of cotton. These early 
stockings were made for function, not sexiness.

YL

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