Date: 1930
Origin: Great Britain
Fabric: Silk
Brand: Three Knots
Sample cards for stocking shades from the brand Three Knots, offering three stocking qualities in artificial silk (most likely rayon), and a ‘Keystone’ branded range of more luxurious silk stockings. It is noteworthy that the brand offered a wide range of skin tone adjacent shades in its product; indeed, the variety goes well beyond what many contemporary hosiery brands offer, despite the fact that the British population of 1930 was far less diverse.
Despite the diversity of skin tone colours available within these swatches, it is important to note how derogatory the colour names are. It can be easy to dismiss that this kind of overt racism is a ‘product of its time’, but it’s important to remember that regardless of historical context or intention, such terms still caused harm to people of colour.
From the collection of Karolina Laskowska
