Pulled Tight and Gleaming: The Stocking’s Position within Eighteenth-Century Masculinity

This article examines the cultural significance of the stocking as an essential accessory of an eighteenth-century man’s attire. Rooted in a material understanding of the stocking through extant garments and archival accounts, this discussion broadens to consider the stocking as a form of cultural currency that spanned visual and popular culture in the eighteenth century. An analysis of the stocking’s visual representation in painted portraiture and graphic satire reveals how it acted as a barometer for British masculinity and subsequently as a visual indicator for the health of the nation, which directly correlated with the stocking’s position and pattern of wear on the leg.