Did a woman invent pantyhose?

Yes, in a way. A woman was behind the design, although it was the Glen Raven Mills company of Altamahaw, N.C., that first came out with the product. That company’s president, Allen Gant, had listened to his wife complain about the complications and inconvenience of nylon stockings, girdles, garters, and garter belts. Gant devised the new “Panti-Legs” in 1959, by first stitching a pair of seamed stockings to a pair of nylon panties. Opaque stockings were just becoming popular then. Later improvements made the pantyhose more elastic and available in a wider variety of sizes, colors, and textures. Within a decade, in 1969, pantyhose sales had skyrocketed to 624 million pair, up from 200 million just the year before. The advent of the miniskirt in 1965 made pantyhose even more popular.