She's Got the Whole World in Her Hand: The Joys of the 1970's L'Egg's Egg

I ordered it from Ebay and I love it. It is a very pleasant size and shape that is easily cradled in the hand. It spins pleasantly and vaguely awkwardly. Because it is a familiar form in an unfamiliar size, it has a surreal, enchanted, and otherworldly aspect.

Of course, the female reader aged thirty-five or older knows that this object is an egg designed to hold panty hose.

Hanes introduced the L'eggs egg in 1970. The decision to package pantyhose in toy-like plastic eggs seems odd today, but in the early 1970's this package held rich metaphorical connotations.

The egg is a potent and ancient symbol. Because of its association with the female reproductive system, the egg signifies fertility and new life. Cosmogonic myths of many cultures describe the world originating in a primal egg. Similarly, some figures of Western mythology such as Castor and Pollux were hatched from eggs.

Fast-forward two or three millennia to the zeitgeist of the early 1970's, the salad days of the women's movement: growing numbers of women entering the workforce, colleges becoming co-ed, protests for abortion rights and against beauty pageants. In 1972 Ms. magazine was founded; in the same year protesters against a Miss America pageant in Texas burned their bras in defiance, giving rise to an epithet – "bra burners" – that would deride the movement and its adherents for years afterward. If the bra were now a restrictive, counterrevolutionary instrument of female oppression, could pantyhose be far behind?

Enter the L'eggs egg. Prior to the early seventies, hosiery was traditionally pressed into shape and packaged in stiff cardboard. The decision to bunch pantyhose into plastic eggs for retail display emphasized the elasticity of new hosiery fibers and was in keeping with new cultural mandates to "hang loose" and refrain from being "up tight." The use of an egg for this purpose, with its symbolism of womanhood and new life, adds an additional layer to the message. The femaleness of the egg itself flatters the female consumer. The L'eggs egg in this context equaled a birth, in this case of a new, liberated woman who is relaxed and carefree. This new woman was literally free from the chore of ironing stockings as her grandmother did. Symbolically, she was free from the stiff and restricted mindset and meager options into which her grandmother had been pressed and folded and which the old packaging of the stockings represented.

But even unfolded hosiery had an image problem. Whether they come in cardboard packages or nifty plastic eggs, stockings are hot in the summer, offer no warmth in the winter, and have to be constantly replaced due to their frustrating lack of durability. The name "L'eggs" shows an understanding of this , cleverly calling attention to the hip and culturally aware packaging and not to the product that the package holds.

The French article "L'" is also a sophisticated use of language, because it associates L'eggs with the cultural sophistication (and sexual liberation) of the French and speaks to a more educated consumer. (The seventies were a decade in love with things French as the popularity in the 1970's of Renault's Le Car, the Au Bon Pain bread shops, and Perrier water equally attest. The French article, mandated by the egg packaging, falls into this broad trend.)

Most of all, the L'eggs egg suggests youth. It fits into the adult female hand in the same way that the classic Easter egg toy fits into a child's. Children's plastic Easter eggs often contain a piece of candy or a toy, so packaging stockings in the plastic eggs subliminally tells the consumer that the product inside is a treat and further refutes women's frustration with uncomfortable and expensive stockings. Those who remember buying this product will recall that the bunched stockings that filled the L'eggs egg tightly filled the package, causing them to burst from the egg when it was opened, almost as if they had taken on a life of their own once they were hatched into being.

A term for "girl" or "woman" in the counterculture of the sixties and seventies was "chick." Although considered a sexist term today, the "chick" of the late sixties was stylish and modern because of her association with trendy youth. Chicks are hatched from eggs, so the wearer of the stockings from the L'eggs egg is, by extension, takes on the cool, "chick" qualities.

The 1980's saw a decline in interest in the women's movement of the sixties and seventies (extensively documented in Susan Faludi's superior 1991 book The Backlash). In the same period, the environmentalist movement gained momentum and focused consumer attention on the implications of non-biodegradable packaging, particularly of consumer goods that had to be replaced frequently. The L'eggs egg was discontinued in 1991 and replaced with cardboard box packaging in response to environmental concerns. I am all for saving the environment; who isn't? But those dreary cardboard boxes will never have the sensual cachet and decadence of breaking open a giant Easter egg every morning as you get dressed for another day at the office.