Are Black Silk Stockings Over-Rated?

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Black Satin & Black Nylons - A Provocative combination!

Staunch devotees of feminine leg beauty would have it that nothing - but nothing enhances the appeal of a shapely pair of legs like sheer black stockings. These artful wisps of dusky nylon enjoy a highly favoured status in the hearts of leg lovers, to whom they conjure up a host of bewitching visions and pleasurable sensations.

In part this is due to the special significance of black as a colour for feminine underwear. By general consent, black is held to be the sexiest colour of all - the most mysterious, alluring, provocative colour a woman can wear in the boudoir - or out of it.

Models in men's magazines are photographed in black more often than any other colour, from stockings and garter belts to gloves and negligees. Figure photographers like black because of the dramatic contrast it makes against white flesh tones. Strippers, chorus girls and cocktail waitresses wear long black net stockings because the customers like it that way. Recently black has stepped down from the stage to become a common sight on city streets and in offices. Try counting the number of girls you see in black nylons in one day. The number may surprise even you, a leg man from way back. Undoubtedly black silk is big business, from Sears to Saks Fifth Avenue.

What's wrong with that? Nothing at all. But consider: are leg fanciers becoming so enamoured with black silk that they're in danger of losing a sense of proportion? Will their senses, tuned in to black, tend to become atrophied and dulled to other shades? In short, are they missing the whole forest just for a few trees?

The girl who sports black nylons is still in a relatively tiny minority. To take the broad view, the vast majority of women still pack their gams in beige and sand-coloured hose, with a few taupes, greys and other shades thrown in. White is still the standard colour for underwear, with pink and blue following close behind as perennial scantie favourites. And by all means let's be broad-minded about this. The narrow view taken by the "black nylon brigade" could lead to missing out on a multitude of visual treats.

Not that black is to be spurned - it is still by far the most voluptuous colour a woman can wear for her "private life." Every woman should include black in her lingerie drawer, for those times when she wants to be at her most alluring and exciting. But sexiness is by no means synonymous with black. To put it another way, if a girl is responsive, she'll feel responsive no matter what colour she wears. By the same token, a cold pigeon will still be a cold pigeon, even if she paints her toenails black.

To be sure, vapor-thin, skin-hugging black stockings are the perfect partners for a black cocktail sheath, as any woman with good dress sense (and horse sense) knows. But she also knows they aren't right with white or pastel outfits, and this is when she sensibly turns to her regular nylons. For the same reason - good taste - she isn't likely to wear a black bra beneath a transparent white blouse, not unless she's trying hard to draw attention to what the bra contains. A harmony of effects in top wear and underwear is what she aims for, and rightly.

Even the model whose business it is to know clothes from A to Z can benefit from awareness of contemporary, everyday tastes. If she errs too far towards the exotic, she runs the risk of appearing bizarre. Black, lacy garter belts and bikini briefs styled by Hollywood creators are all very well, but if a model looks too far-out her appeal will be restricted to a small, specialized audience. The most successful and sought-after image a model can create is that of looking like the girl next door - or appearing to. The girl next door may never wear black silk stockings or lace scanties, but she is nevertheless a very desirable young lady. Beige hose and dime-store briefs may not be the ultimate in sexy attire, but inside them is a living, flesh-and-blood woman. Why not accept her as she is, enjoy her for what she is? There'll be time enough to educate her into the refinements of feminine wear; this in itself will become a pleasure, as she adds to her collection of lingerie and steps into a new world of tantalizing ultra-sophisticated black fashion.

Until that happy day arrives, it might be well for the leg lover to lower his sights and take in a wider panorama. While keeping black as his bullseye, he should never forget his main target legs, legs, legs! It is the overall scene from hip to toe that really scores - the ineffable rhythm conveyed by a pert posterior and carried clear down to the heels. And what a rhythm! It is timeless, awe-inspiring, no matter what stocking shade she wears. Sheer white nylon would not impair the message inherent in a good-looking pair of gams, nor will black nylon enhance it. And if the boudoir should reveal a flair for underthing’s of firehouse red or shocking pink - or even standard white - your ticket is still good for a trip to Paradise!

Leg Show Volume 1 No 5 - 1963 (By Perter Weatherby)

Telephone Cheesecake

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Cheesecake With A Telephone Gimmick

The primary purpose of cheesecake photography is to compose a picture with impact which is capable of casting a spell of enticing charm. In creating this optical illusion, it is necessary for the photographer to accentuate that combination of physical attributes, i.e., the face, arms, legs, and bust of an attractive girl which contributes to her complete physical beauty. In order to properly accentuate those physical attributes of a pretty girl it is advisable to associate them with a gimmick. A gimmick as Webster defines it is a device by which a magician works a trick. During the past number of years photographers like magicians have been working tricks through the use of gimmicks. Some of the most clever gimmicks we have become accustomed to enjoying either in picture magazines, advertisements on billboards, or on calendars are fireplaces, telephones, playing cards, and many others. By posing a girl with a telephone gimmick there are many angles revealed in which her beauty can be delusively glorified. Comparatively speaking, a telephone gimmick is to cheesecake as the application of the proper seasoning is to a tossed salad -they both require a special applicable technique. In cheesecake a telephone gimmick is capable of raising an average picture above the snapshot category into that type of photograph which is able to entice additional glamour from a pretty girl who has been graciously endowed with physical beauty.

Black Silk Stockings Volume 1 No 3 - Elmer Batters 1958

Pam Horton

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No Wonder Dad Fell In

We were living it up on one of the Norfolk Broads, although Mum said cooking beans all day was hardly her idea of life at its most ecstatic. Dad said try some bangers, then, at which mum hit him over the head with the bean ladle and said "Well, I tried one how did it feel?"

Dad didn't even know she'd hit him; he had his eyes glued to Pam Horton's Water Ski Spectacular.

“What incomparable skill," he breathed, his teeth grinding on his glass of local brew, "what verve, what execution, what a covey of utterly divine Aquamaids."

"You swine," said Mum, "you ought to be locked in the scuppers." Mum always talks like that when Dad starts reaching for his binoculars.

"Go and cook the beans," said Dad, jamming the binoculars against his glazed eyeballs. "Damn it," he added, "I can't see a thing, I'm all steamed up.' "Break your father's leg," said Mum, handing me an iron mallet.

Fortunately for my peace of mind - I'm a very sensitive child - that wasn't necessary. And no wonder.

No wonder what? No wonder Dad fell in and saved me from taking sides. As he got his binoculars focussed on the Aquamaids they came dancing over the water in a French Can-Can act and when Dad saw how absolutely delectable, they looked in close-up he crumpled at the knees and fell in. Mum leaned over the side and shouted, "How do you feel now, you old fool?"

"Blind me," murmured Dad, "it's a lovely way to go."

(Dad's impressionable mind apart, the Water Ski Spectacular is all it claims to be. On the left is PAM HORTON herself, the inspiration behind the aqua displays, and if Aquamaids are all like this you can't wonder Dad wants their autographs.)

Beautiful Britons No 135 - February 1967

Carol Pepper

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The Pep In Pepper

Looking rather fetching, you must admit, in her black lingerie and boots is London advertising assistant CAROL PEPPER. A gay and uninhibited follower of fashion, Carol puts the pep in pepper. She's eighteen and on our list of girls who light up the swing scene by being brilliantly switched-on.

Spick No 193 - December 1969

Bridie Goodwin

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Bridie

The last time we featured BRIDIE GOODWIN, she was a confirmed bachelor girl. Then suddenly, wham! There he was, the one who shattered all her feminist resolutions and made her plump for the altar.

Now Bridie is a housewife and young mum, but she still has a delicious yen for being a glamour puss, and still manages to find time to do the occasional modelling. Here she is not very far from her own back garden, and looking pretty nice, don't you think.

Beautiful Britons No 252 - November 1976

Carolyn Rose

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I Don't Hang About

What's all this, then? Who's taking upside-down photographs? Find the feller and fire him. He must be drinking the strong stuff.

It's not what? Not upside-down? Eh? Oh. Well, who is it who's doing it? It's not Tarzan's glamorous jungle mate, is it? If it is, throw Tarzan to the elephants and send his mate to us.

Oh, all right, it's nothing like that at all. It's just CAROLYN ROSE of Bristol showing that when it comes to woodland gymnastics it's not those Olympic girls who've got all the talent.

Carolyn does judo as well and is currently attending evening classes in Bristol to learn how to sail a kitchen table round the world. Marvellous. Incredible.

Lovely. Lots of mothers have the most fabulous daughters, and Carolyn's mother is just famously proud of hers. Well, how many girls do you know who can swing upside-down from a tree?

Spick No 193 - December 1969

Christine Sayers

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A Change From Horses

Earning a living as a glamour model in London is CHRISTINE SAYERS, fair as a cornfield at harvest time.

Christine's parents run a riding school, and Christine finds the glamour world quite a change from feeding hay to horses. And you can't clean out stables week after week without feeling there must be something else in life.

All the same, she often goes home at weekends.

Just for a long spell of fresh air and a gallop or two over the countryside. Keeps a glamour girl looking trim, you know, and jolly healthy as well, what?

Christine is five feet six and measures 37-23-36.

That's trim without being at all flat. And extremely photogenic.

Spick No 272 - July 1976

Marie Graham

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All Right, Just For Fred

Our Fred has always had a gleam in his eye for MARIE GRAHAM, readers' favourite.

So just for Fred- because of all his blarney, which he got from falling down a well in Devon-Marie put on her black nylons and had a town-and-country hairdo. A town-and-country hairdo is one that looks lovely in Bond Street or Farmer King's meadow.

Fred likes black nylons.

"So, there you are, then, like Marie's, do you?'

"Geddoudavit," said Fred, "I'm not telling you; I'm writing to her."

"Oh, passionate, are we?"

Spick No 253 - December 1976