Going Further Into the Past

A co-worker brought this little thing into work for me. I have to admit I have never seen nor heard of these: little silk hosiery mending kits. They consist of small quantities of various shades of silk thread and Run-Arrestor wands that when moistened could be applied to runs in hosiery like a temporary glue. Once a women returned home she could wash the stockings and then mend them with the thread and included needle. How, I would not know? My try at mending would have been so noticeable that I would have to just throw out the hose and start all over with a new pair, no matter how expensive they were. Which of course really means that I would have been "that odd woman who always wore pants."

Real Silk ad

My mending kit was created and distributed by Real Silk Hosiery Mills, Inc. of Indianapolis, Indiana. It is nearly complete with 6 shades* of silk thread, a needle, and 9 out of the 10 original Run-Arrestor Wands.

When searching online using the terms "hosiery mending kit" I was greatly intrigued by the links for Butter Nut Coffee Hosiery mending kit. What could that possibly be? Hosiery in a coffee shade? meaning silk stockings for "women of color"? Well, of course not. Instead it was an advertising premium given free to women from the makers of Butter Nut Coffee. I guess other salesmen saw that women might possibly buy their product if reminded of it's name whenever they ran their very expensive and dear stockings.

I then found other kits touting political candidates, Wonder Bread, other hosiery brands, and a pretty cool and probably rare one for super-mod, super-cool airline Braniff International. That one was going for $12!

More on the kits was found here and to find your own, try looking here.

*that strangely seem to match my medium-brown skin tone.

Images: Neely's Antiques and AdClassix.com