Actually, it's 1962 but I was surprised at that, too. Of course, I didn't know they were available in 1965-I thought a bit later.

While they may have been invented by 1961, they weren't generally worn until shorter skirts made them necessary. They were quite a bit more expensive to use, since if you ran one stocking you only hand to replace one.

I think I starting switching to panyhose around 1968, but then, we did live in Montana, probably a few years behind NYC.

Maybe the ad firm has the pantyhose account so they are all wearing them!

My husband has been driving me crazy over the pantyhose issue--he swears 1962 was too early--I don't remember them that early either. "Googling" everywhere only gets the name Alan Gant as the inventor, in 1959, but the invention then was spandex--which is then the ability to have hose that would "stick." Can anyone confirm when they actually hit the market?

Hi All:

I too thought it was too early for pantyhose. Also, during the fashion show at the Country Club they said that one of the models wore her bikini to do the Watusi (sp?).

I thought that it was not until the mid - sixties that the dance was in.

But, I love this show.

Ann

When Peggy put on the pantyhose, I, too, was surprised. Google indicates that they were "invented" in 1959 and came on the market in 1965. I started wearing them in 1966 and have never looked back. I agree with everyone that 1962 was too early.

As far as I am concerned, the two greatest inventions of the Twentieth Century were pantyhose and hairspray!

I'm glad someone else saw the anachronistic panty-hose---and I believe those were even control tops--they at least had a darker, reinforced panty section. Come-on, design dept !! Showing those ladies still struggling with garters and girdles--ESPECIALLY the women who did not need them---is a big part of the whole sociological truth of women's lives at this time. I am a NYC member of USA 829--costume designer's union--and I love the show--but these little slips make me NUTS! Step it UP! The other posters got it right---pantyhose were available--but RARE --since 1959. Most women, however, did not convert to the idea--and the ease, until the mini was popularly adopted---1965-66-ish. ask your moms!

MTmom called it. Since Sterling/Cooper had the Playtex account, they get access to product so that they can write ads for it. Peggy probably got some as she works on the account.

On the subject of pantyhose...

I agree with cuckooc, and the others who wrote about this tonight. It's sad that we are all catching these mistakes. This show is all about the "look", and it's ruined when someone doesn't follow through.
The design department is screwing up way too much this season. Do your homework, people! If dedicated viewers are able to see your mistakes, maybe they should be doing your job.
No Emmys for you!

I thought I remembered a "WAAAA WA WA TUSI" song from the early 60's---I googled it-- it was by the ORLONS---1962! Obviously they were up on all the lastest dances at the country club!

Pantyhose was on the market in the mid 60s. However, they weren't part of everyday attire. When very short skirts and "hot pants" outfits were all the rage, everyone wore pantyhose and stockings practically ceased to exist.

I remember being in middle school when panty hose started showing up in all the stores. Women initially didn't like them because they "didn't stay up" and if one leg got a run, you had to throw the whole thing away.

The watusi became popular around 1964-65, when a photo of Lucy Baines Johnson was published, showing her dancing the watusi with her date. I think she was still in high school.

And the bikini? Well, you might find SOME moms wearing conservative high-waisted two piece swim suits in 1962, but NOT a bikini. In 1962, the bikini really was not commonly worn. That didn't happen until the "Beach Blanket" movies became popular in the mid 60s.

Ha! So I wasn't the only one who noticed the pantyhose!

You are right! I was "there". No pantyhose in 1962! And definitely no Watusi!

Well, someone has a lot of 'splaining to do! Peggy of all people- with pantyhose? Now, VERY really!
I think Mad Men should give us all season 1 and 2 DVDs. This should alleviate any residual mental
stress over the pantyhose faux pas.
Next week Don buys a new car- one that befits his executive status, AND it better not be a '64 Mustang!

Yes, I feel vindicated that my pantyhose memory timeline was correct. I goggled history of pantyhose to be sure before signing in on this. I think Peggy would have worn nylons and a garter belt; I don't see her as a girdle gal.

lol ... I weighed about 90 lbs. in high school and I remember wearing a panty girdle over my panty hose just to keep them up. They were AWFUL in the early to mid 70s. They would "stretch out" by lunch and end up around your knees if you didn't find a way to keep them up. Peggy's were definitely control top and panty hose didn't even look like that in 1973, let alone 1962,

This is fun, it really works my memory. These are my recollections...

My oldest sister was in high school from 1962-65 (we had 3-year high school then). She wore only garters and stockings. My second and third sisters would have been in junior high at that time and I remember that as the skirts began to get shorter, the schools really protested (dress code) and required that the skirt touch the floor when a girl was kneeling. By the time my second eldest sister got to high school, the skirts were quite a bit shorter and the school dress codes gave way. But, I always remember the gossip about girls whose skirts were too short for their stockings, making garters and stocking tops visible. A real no-no. Girls started wearing colored and patterned tights, (not sure exactly what year--maybe 1967-68?) which gave way to pantyhose. So, while pantyhose may have been available by 1965, if memory serves they weren't widely worn until the skirts got quite short--toward the later part of the 60's. Making, of course, Peggy's pantyhose not quite realistic. Thanks for your patience on this long post. Didn't mean to be a windbag.

Peggy's panythose seemed out of place to me as well, though I will assume the Mad Men staffers, who are usually so good with period details, did their research and made a conscious decision to go with pantyhose instead of the more common nylons and garter belt. .

The other fashion item that jumped out at me is this: why were Pete and his "date" wearing coats on the day after Memorial Day? Presumably it was warm (remember at roughly the same time, a bikini-clad Betty is serving cereal to Sally, and talking about going to the pool). Pete's black rain coat looked especially out of place.

Actually, Ernest G. Rice received a patent for what became known as pantyhose in 1956; he renewed the patent in 1958. But according to the Vintage Fashion Guild, pantyhose were only mass produced in 1965. Here's what it says: Seamless Stockings were what the well dressed woman wore, although seamed stockings were still being sold. In 1959 Spandex was developed which conforms to the body, stretching and then snapping back in place, making saggy, baggy hose a thing of the past. In the 1960's, when Twiggy started modeling mini skirts, thigh high stockings had to go. The first pair of pantyhose went off the production line in 1965. Pantyhose had been in limited use since the 50's for theatrical and dance companies. The older pantyhose have a nice elastic band, the same as that used in panties

When Peggy was shown putting on her pantyhose, I felt like Chistopher Reeve's character in "Somewhere in Time" when he saw the inappropriately dated penny that shattered his perfectly created illusion of the past.

I felt betrayed by the writers, who I now imagine as a bunch of twenty-somethings who didn't bother to check on this detail.

As a second-grader in 1963, I remember our teacher reading to us, sitting in front of the class with her legs crossed and her panty girdle quite visible. I don't remember a thing about the stories! :)

I also remember an incident in 1969 when a student teacher in my algebra class dropped an eraser. Skirts were very short that year, and I was desperately hoping (out loud, under my breath, repeatedly, as I recall) that she would bend over to pick it up. Sure enough, eventually, she did, affording a nice view of her panty girdle.

The same year, in choir, I sat behind a girl a year ahead of me. We sat on folding chairs, and whenever she leaned over to pick up her books, there was a nice view of her white panties underneath her pantyhose.

So, based on these recollections, I think the younger girls adopted pantyhose first, around 1968 or 1969. The older girls waited another year or two.

Then, unfortunately, the bottom dropped out and the school started allowing girls to wear pants in 1971.

The current, and apparently ongoing, trend of bare legs is a real disappointment.

I hope the Mad Men writers eventually explain Peggy's scene. They made such a point of showing her pull on her hose that maybe there was an actual purpose to it. (She's ahead of her time, she does it for a client, whatever.)

I'm so glad to see so many others noticed this anachronism! My husband--who is 10 years younger than I am and therefore has NO CLUE about the '60's--actually argued with me when I said there were no panty hose in 1961 or '62! I'm surprised the costume department didn't catch this! Loooove the show though!

Anachronism!
I was first allowed to wear stockings in 1967. We wore stockings and garter belts, they were the only choice available. I remember that pantyhose weren't on the market until a few years after that, '69 maybe.

I caught this, too. The first I remember about 1967 or 1968 were called Londonaire and they were pretty expensive, supposed to be run-resistant.

I think the research department is doing its job rather well. Pantyhose was invented in 1959, so it is quite possible that Peggy is testing them so that the agency can get her (the intended female customer's) "feel" for the product. The Orlons' "Wah-Watusi" wasn't a hit until 1963, but early adopters (specifically the black teenagers who probably invented the dance) were probably doing the Watusi in 1962, so that too is perfectly plausible. Pampers were introduced in 1961, so that checks out as well. Heineken beer had been available in the U.S. as an import since the end of Prohibition. So all the "suspicious anomalies" I thought I had "caught" actually checked out when I researched them. Let's give credit where credit is due, folks: these are our own mistakes based on erroneous assumptions, not the program's.

Another thing that bothered me was Don's use of a TV remote control in the hotel, but I looked that up too, and Zenith had had a remote control on the market since 1950. Come on folks, these writers aren't stupid! You are taking the proverbial bait.

I'm just watching tonight's episode (Sept. 6) which takes place in 1963, and Peggy just made another pantyhose reference. Pantyhose really weren't needed until miniskirts came in. That was so garters wouldn't show.
It's bugged me since the first episode, too, that they had IBM Selectric typewriters. Those were not available in 1961, and it took years for them to get into general use. Why they didn't use the old electric typewriters with keys, I don't know. I was using those at a job I had in the early 70s.

When Peggy mentioned the expense of "replacing her pantyhose" that were ripped on the train during her commute, my authenticity alarm went off. As meticulous as the producers are reported to be, this reference surprised me. As a pre-teen with three older sisters, I eagerly awaited being old enough to wear "garter belt and stockings," only to have panty-hose arrive before I had my chance to give 'em a whirl. In 1962, would a working girl would be wearing pantyhose? What other slips has the show made (of which we might not be so "intimately" aware)? It is the responsibility of viewers our age to keep a sharp eye, lest the younger generation mistakenly believe erroneous references as "authentic."

I picked up on that immediately. I did not start wearing pantyhose until 1968, probably because they were too expensive. I was too young in 1962 to wear stockings, but my mother never wore pantyhose back then. As for the Playtex account explanation, I doubt a woman in 1962 would be given any perks from clients. But if she did, she would have been given maybe one pair of pantyhose, not a continuous supply.

There's alot of speculation going on here so I thought I would find some definitive proof. Here is a link to a scan of a page from a 1962 Spegels catalog.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wishbook/3917640575/in/set-72157620292449435/

There you go. Pantyhose WERE available in 1962. The per pair cost was a bit more than stockings but not radically more.

VERDICT - Not a goof.

the spiegel's ad was interesting. but the price equivalent today of the pantyhose for the 2 models is about $ 20 and $30....and those early things did run like crazy, so you had to toss them 1st time sometime. better in 62 to buy the stockings and you could use the non run one if you got a run in the other. who ever mentioned the girdle thing was so right on, even the skinny things wore them until 64....i was fascinated by my older sis's stuff. commercial pantyhose that was affordable hit the grocery store in '68 @ $1.29 a pop and i got to wear a pair to my sister's wedding! no garter belt for me! but no way peggy was wearing them until the current '65 season. and that was pretty surprising to see given the length of her skirts.

Not sure why so many people think that this was '62--the year is supposed to be '64. Remember they covered the Kennedy assasination and it became the end of Camelot for the Drapers at the same time too last season. Anyway, regarding pantyhose--I immediately thought that was an anachronism also when I saw them on Peggy. I started wearing hose with garterbelts. And thigh-hi's and pantyhose in my experience did not come out till the late 60's. I was very relieved when they did! But Peggy does live in New York where they are more fashion foreward, so maybe they had them sooner than the rest of the country.

The year on the show is actually 1965. Remember the at the beginning of the season when everyone came back from the holidays and they started the partners meeting with Joan saying "Gentlemen shall we begin 1965?'

Here is what I found. ...In 1965, Glen Raven Mills developed a seamless pantyhose version that coincided with the introduction of the miniskirt.

If you are truly watching every episode of the show, you will notice that the children are growing older, JFK has been assassinated, and the signature on the wall in the Anna's house in CA has "Dick and Anna 1964." Anna has been gone for nearly one year, therefore the year of the episode "Tomorrowland" is 1965 not 1961 or 1962.
Panty hose are in use in 1965 and fairly new. The mini skirt and mod fashion era begins with Twiggy, the teenage, 10-year-old model in 1966-67. Just look at the Barbie clothes from the decade 1965 to 1975 to see the trends in fashion.
We are fans of "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad." Thanks to AMC for producing excellent shows with amazing writing that we do not have to pay a premium fee to watch!

If you are a real fan of the show and watch every episode, you will notice that Don's children are growing up, JFK has been assassinated, and the wall on Anna's home in CA is signed "Dick and Anna 1964" when he visits with his children one year after Anna's death. Therefore, the episode "Tomorowland" is in 1965 and Peggy can be wearing pantyhose. Thanks to AMC for giving us shows with great writing and details. We enjoy "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad."

Pantyhose were not in general use in 1962, not even in Manhattan or other urban areas of the U.S. You have only to watch movies from the early 60s to see that women were still wearing garter belts and stockings. I myself didn't own a pair until my junior year of HS, which was 1971.

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