On May 15, 1940, women across America lined up before sunrise outside department stores. By the time the doors opened, the crowds stretched for blocks. They had come to buy something brand new: nylon stockings. By the end of that single day, an estimated four million pairs had been sold across the country. Some stores ran out in minutes. Newspapers called it Nylon Day.
Until then, women's stockings had been made of silk imported from Japan or itchy wool. Silk was expensive and snagged easily. Then, in 1935, a chemist at the DuPont company named Wallace Carothers had cooked up a brand-new material in his lab - the first totally synthetic fiber, made from chemicals instead of plants or animals. DuPont called it nylon. They tested it in toothbrush bristles first, then dramatically introduced nylon stockings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Women got to see models wearing them and went wild.
The stockings were a smash hit because they were stronger, smoother, and cheaper than silk. But the timing was tricky. Just over a year later, the United States entered World War II, and the government grabbed almost all the nylon for parachutes, ropes, and military gear. Stockings disappeared from stores, and women drew lines down the backs of their legs with eyeliner to pretend they were wearing them. When the war ended in 1945, mobs of shoppers stormed stores in what newspapers called the Nylon Riots. Today nylon is in everything from backpacks to fishing line to soccer jerseys, but it all started with a single morning in 1940.
