Why the bottom has fallen out of stocking sales

Figures published today show sales have halved since 2003 and are now worth just £5 million a year. Tights are outselling stockings by 40 pairs to one.

Experts say the current popularity of footless tights - as modelled by figures such as Sienna Miller and Kate Moss - has contributed to the demise of the stocking.

The growing number of women wearing trousers, warmer weather and the greater convenience of tights have also helped push stockings to the brink of joining petticoats and corsets in the annals of fashion history.

Overall the British hosiery market grew last year to £272 million, with women buying 236 million pairs of tights, knee-highs, hold-ups and stockings.

Sales are expected to rise again this year to £279 million, although this is still well down on the £319 million sales of 2002.

Leading hosiery brand Pretty Polly has tried to reach out to a younger market by hiring pop stars such as Rachel Stevens and Sugababes to front its advertising.

Marks & Spencer has launched a range of tights that it claims will firm thighs by stimulating bloodf low in the legs.

Today's Mintel report said: "This year bodes well (for hosiery), with key items this season being the short smock dress and the tunic top. This not only favours tights, but the high street look is to pair them with footless tights or leggings."

But the hosiery revival seems to have come too late to save stockings.

Katy Child, report manager at Mintel, said: "Suspender belts are fiddly and they show up under any dress that is made of clinging material.

"I don't think they will disappear altogether but they will be become a very niche product for special occasions worn mainly for the bedroom. Hold-ups are more discreet and more practical."

It is a far cry from the heyday of stockings 60 years ago. During the Second World War, nylon, or even better silk, stockings became some of the most desired black-market commodities.

Some women even drew charcoal lines up the back of their legs to make it look as if they were wearing seamed stockings.

However, the long decline of the garment had already begun in the early Sixties after nylon tights went on sale in the US for the first time in 1959.