Gore Clock Stockings

Measurements:  Foot L, 8.5"; Stocking H, 21.5".

Comments: The stocking frame, an ingenious machine for knitting stockings was first developed in the late 17th century.  By the early 18th century, hand knit stocking were associated with the working classes, machine knit ones with the upper classes.  The width and height of the white knit gores (V-shaped instep inserts) on each stocking helps to date this pair to sometime before the mid 18th c. The intricate pattern of embroidery over the gores is called a clock.  Jeremy Farrell, in Socks and Stockings states, "Although the gore retained its height into the 1750s it became narrower and the decorative embroidery more attenuated until the gore itself disappeared and only slight embroidery remained."  Also, after the 1740s white was the fashionable choice for stockings over colored.  The pair offered for sale here are quite rare and in fantastic condition.