Hosiery used to be worn equally by men and women.

Today we think more about hosiery, stocking and tights mainly as a female item of clothing this was not always the case. for several hundred years it was worn equally by men and women.

If you look backwards into fashion history you see that men wore long cotton or silk stocking which finished above their knee britches shown in this drawing of Richard Sackville 1589 -1624 with his stocking tied with a ribbon to hold them in place.
Britches started to lengthened from around 1800 like the ones worn by John Hancock in 1793 and became less flamboyant, these slowly evolved into what we know as trousers today,  the need for wearing long stocking decreased for men because their legs were now covered by the trouser legs and hosiery shortened and become more like long sock which men are more familiar with today.

For ladies like Rose-adla-de-ducreux her stocking would be very similar to the gentleman's made in silk been tied with a ribbon slightly above her knee

 Lady Rose's servants and the majority of ladies around this time would still have to wear wool stocking of every day and maybe if they were lucky they would have a pair of cotton isle stockings for the Sunday best, as with all nice lades at this time had long floor length hem line you would not be able to see their feet and stockings of course wear today.


 Victorian stocking although unseen were not always plain as you would think this 1880 advert shows some of the designs of stockings which were available at the time for lady, they were made in both cotton and silk and as the advert says available in all desirable colours yellow, lavender, gold and even sky blue, some were made in drop stitch and others  ribbed cotton lisle embroidered on the leg.