The Anonymous Widower

What Happened to Men’s Nylon Shirts?

Do you remember those awful drip-dry nylon shirts of the ninteen-sixties?

They were awful and I don’t think they did anything for attracting the opposite sex.  Especially as they used to shine in the lights on the dance floor.

But why did they disappear?

It was all to do with mini-skirts.

Before women raised their hemlines and men’s heart rate, they used to wear stockings.  But as skirts got shorter, you weren’t decent in stockings, so there was a swift move to tights.  Look at the average pair of tights and they use perhaps more than twice as much nylon than the stockings they replace.  And to make matters worse, you can’t use two odd ones to make a pair.

So the result was that the demand for nylon rocketed.

As you can’t build a new plant overnight, ICI and the other manufacturers had to get the nylon from somewhere.

So they diverted it from men’s shirts to ladies’ hosiery and killed one of the most abominable articles of men’s clothing.

November 9, 2009 - Posted by AnonW | World | Clothes, ICI, Nylon