It's a longer story than what one would think. Openwork stockings that allow the skin to be shown have existed for a while and fishnet stockings are basically an extreme case of those. This Italian apothecary jar from the early 16th century shows a woman lifting her skirt - she's showing her vulva! - and she is wearing elaborate fishnet stockings (cited by Merrill and Ben-Horin, 2015). It is clearly an erotic picture but whether this type of stockings was actually perceived as erotic in the 16th century should deserve examination. In any case, we can see that such garments did exist in Italy in the 1500s and that they could appear in a sexual context.

Openwork stockings in the 18th and 19th century

This pair of 18th century French knitted cotton stockings (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)], or these English knitted cotton stockings from 1830 are not fishnet stockings in the modern sense, but they are definitely see-through. These designs seem to have been common: the American manual The Ladies' Work-table Book from 1845 contains detailed instructions on how to knit such stockings, using "fine wool" instead of silk.

There were probably racier models made with a much larger and revealing mesh. In March 1828, Italian princess Marie-Caroline of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duchess of Berry (and mother of Legitimist pretender Henri, Count of Chambord), was vacationing in Dieppe, a sea resort on Normandy that she had made fashionable. The Duchess was known to be slightly eccentric when it came to clothing: she once had appeared at a dance without a corset and wearing a dress "slit up to her knee" which allowed her to spread her legs, a vision found "curious" by Marshall de Castellane. In Dieppe, the Duchess had fun in the sea by splashing other bathers, but some people were not amused: the town councilors, who had to foot the bill, which included "scarves and silk stockings, of the kind with a large mesh that made prudish ladies whisper" (Bertin, 1900). While we do not know how the Duchess' fishnet stockings looked precisely, it is clear that they were found, like her slit dress, a little too risque. The Duchess could get away with this since she was the mother of the future King of France (or so it was believed).

Stendhal's classic novel Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black, 1830), contemporary of the previous events, includes a chapter titled Les bas à jour (Openwork stockings). One of the protagonists, Mrs de Rênal, a provincial aristocrat, falls in love with the young tutor of her children, Julien Sorel. He takes a short vacation, and, when he returns, she puts on "open-work stockings and a pair of charming little shoes that had arrived from Paris" to greet him. A friend of Mrs de Rênal concludes immediately that the "poor woman" is in love. We do no know how "open" these stockings were, and they probably do not correspond to our modern conception of fishnet stockings, but it is clear that their "openness" played a definite role in Mrs de Rênal's willingness to appear more attractive than usual for her young lover.

In 1877, the culture and fashion magazine La Vie Parisienne ran a series of articles about the "ideal" cabinet de toilette, the room where the lord and lady of the house would freshen up and pamper themselves before going out. The first article shows what looks like a two-cup brassiere (criticized for being "coarse" and for giving breasts "an unnatural swelling") and the second article describes, with pictures, a series of stockings that includes the bas en filet (literally "fishnet stockings") made like mitaines (fingerless gloves) (H.-Y., 1877). It is actually difficult to know whether the article is meant to be realistic or fanciful: the author and illustrator "H.-Y." (Henry de Montaut) was known for his engravings done for Jules Verne's novels. In any case, the garments depicted are supposed to be extremely lavish and not meant for regular people. It is likely that these kind of stockings were tailor-made for very rich women. Countess Alice de Laincel, in her Art de la toilette chez la femme (1885), dedicated several pages to luxury stockings, which, by the end of the century, now existed in a tantalizing variety of colours, patterns, and materials, and she explained to her readers how to choose the proper type of stocking for any occasion.

For the evening, the stocking, more or less embroidered, more or less openwork, decorated with lace, should match very precisely with the dress.

An article from 1892 in the fashion magazine La Revue mondaine illustrée explains the latest fad in terms of stockings (Camée, 1892):

Engorged legs call for longitudinal stripes, Legitimists choose white silk stockings with a fleur-de-lys pattern; in a heatwave, one likes cool fishnet stockings with silvery fish playing on them.

Like the 1877 article, this one deals with actual fashion trends, but the language verges on fantasy.

It is again difficult to assess how popular were these kinds of stockings: they are not listed on French hosiery catalogues, but this would be expected if they were tailor-made for rich customers. It is possible that these stockings were not only extremely expensive, but also extremely fragile (a common trait to silk stockings). Can-can dancers, as painted by Lautrec, Seurat and others at the end of the century, wore regular black stockings, not fishnets.

The Brooklyn Church incident

The next appearance of fishnet stockings occurred in a rather unexpected place: the Bushwick Reformed Dutch church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In the summer 1902, the church pastor, Rev. James C. Humes, started "waging a pulpit war on that particular net work sort of hosiery which has been favored by women during the last year."

He denounced such stockings at a meeting of a sewing circle, and then in a Sunday school, where he hoped that little girls would not wear open work stockings: "They are the invention of Satan and bear Satan's stamp".

These repeated attacks on "fish-net stockings" did not go well with the parishioners, who started abandoning the church: this resulted in Humes' dismissal by the board of the consistory (Evening Sentinel, 19 November 1902; The Spokane Press, 26 November 1902). The story was repeated with some glee by American newspapers.

This story shows that some (religious, urban) American women were wearing (and probably sewing) fishnet stockings in 1902. Were these "gay stockings" a new pattern or a variant of known openwork types such as those described in the The Ladies' Work-table Book half a century before, or those white linen American ones from the late 19th century, or something similar to the designs shown in Pearsall’s Illustrated Handbook for Knitting in Silks (1906)? It is hard to say.

In any case, their erotic appeal was not lost on some people: The Spokane Press mocked the reverend for "talking of something he ought not to have known as much about as he pretended to know". It is actually amazing that the defenders of fishnet stockings obtained the dismissal of their pastor, though, of course, there may be more to that story than the stocking incident by itself.

-> PART 2