I have always known the FALKE brand and one year I was lucky enough to get a hand-me-down pair of FALKE sports socks from my brother who was the sportsman in the family - you know, the ones that are conveniently labelled with an L and R to tell you which foot to put them on. I think I cherished those socks for years and made myself believe that I too was an up and coming sportsperson like my brother was – I wasn’t, believe me!

But it was that something special about those socks that makes me remember them still to this day. They are not just socks, they are a labour of love. Every stitch counts and every product is engineered with heart. This is the ethos that the Falke, German knitting family brought with them to South Africa and that has remained within their company for 123 years. 
 

Yes, that Falke - the company who makes the awesome socks that everyone who's ever done even a spot of sport has a pair of, because they are awesome.

My favourites in the new range are the stay-ups that to me channel the 1930s / 1940s. They come in black and beige. While Falke's version is a stay-up with a pretty sexy lace detailing, stockings at that time came up just above the knee and were held up with utility garters (it was considered taboo at the time to be baring any leg - what a waste!).

The stitch print at the back of Falke's tights actually has a bit of history to it: fabrics in the 30s to 40s era were obviously not as fancy and magical as they are today. The "tubes" we now have to put our legs into weren't a thing except for in rare and expensive knitted versions, and stockings were mostly seamed and stitched up the back.

A little bit of tangentially related trivia about America's Great Depression. There was no shortage of things to be bleak about at the time. According to this historical account, women were asked to give up their stockings as donations because the materials that they were made from (nylon and silk) were needed to make parachutes for use in the war. As a result, women panicked and stockpiled. Obviously.

And so the law stepped in to regulate pricing and availability. So, if you laid a hole into your stockings, you did not throw them out: you mended them. Fortunately today we can own many pairs in many styles and colours! But anyway, you should have a read through Vintage Dancer's awesome blog post with more interesting information and some pretty great photos. Here are a couple that I've found on the internet in general, just to give you an idea: