The Fab Four For Your Legs

This pair of vintage Beatles stockings was made in England by Ballito Mills for Scott-Centenaire Ltd.; the packaging features the face and signatures of the Fab Four.

The individual stockings were packed in pairs, but they also were packaged in standard blue Ballito boxes.

Beatles nylon stockings may be rare, but there were many variations in packaging, stocking design, and even makers.

Ballito Mills alone had multiple varies in packaging and stocking design; this pair features Fab Four and a 45 RPM record on the packaging and the nylon stockings themselves have the Fab Four on the welt.

The Powerhouse Museum, which has Beatles stockings in their Beecher-Moore Stocking Collection, describes a pair of 1966 Ballito Beatles stockings in greater detail:

The faces are printed in blue, pink and white above each band member’s signature. The faces are repeated as a pattern woven through the legs of both stockings.

This pair of Ballito stockings dates to 1964 features not only The Beatles on the welt, but the textured mesh nylon stockings have a clearly repeated design of faces and guitars.

Other Beatles stockings were made in Holland and sold by Vroom and Dreesmann for the Dutch market. According to the seller:

Unlike the vintage UK “Carefree” and “Ballito” Beatles Nylons these do not have any decorations or Beatles imagery in the stockings themselves. There are no identifying marks on the stockings.

While the above seem clearly to be licensed products, these four 1960s packages “Kinder Mini Hose” of pantyhose for children, appear to be unlicensed.

I wonder how many kids were disappointed in those stockings?

And I wonder how many more vintage Beatles stocking styles and manufacturers were made — and still out there for collectors to find!

Image Credits:

Vintage Ballito Beatles stockings from sg4beatles.

Image of two pairs of Ballito Beatles stockings with Ballito box via iCollector.

Ballito package with record and photo of stocking welt from 20th Century Collectibles.

Vintage Beatles textured patterned Ballito stockings from 991.

The vintage Vroom and Dreesmann Beatles stockings photos via haze54.

Kinder Mini Hose photo via iCollector.