Garter (clothing)
Garters are items of
clothing, used to keep
stockings up. Normally just a few inches in width, they are usually made of leather or heavy cloth, and adorned with small bells and/or ribbons. In the 18th to 20th centuries, they were tied just below the knee, where the leg was skinniest, to keep the stocking from slipping. The advent of elastic has made them unnecessary from this functional standpoint, although they are still often worn for
fashion.
The most famous "garter" in English is the
Order of the Garter, which traces its history to the Middle English poem
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th century [i] alliterative [i] romance [i] ...
.
Encyclopedia
Garters are items of
clothing, used to keep
stockings up. Normally just a few inches in width, they are usually made of leather or heavy cloth, and adorned with small bells and/or ribbons. In the 18th to 20th centuries, they were tied just below the knee, where the leg was skinniest, to keep the stocking from slipping. The advent of elastic has made them unnecessary from this functional standpoint, although they are still often worn for
fashion.
The most famous "garter" in English is the
Order of the Garter, which traces its history to the Middle English poem
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th century [i] alliterative [i] romance [i] ...
. In the poem, Gawain accepts a garter from the wife of his host to save his life and then wears it as a mark of shame for his moral failure and cowardice.
King Arthur and his men proclaim it no shame and begin, themselves, to wear the garter to indicate their shared fate. At that point, however, the garter was a larger garment that was used as a foundation.
In
Elizabethan fashions, men wore garters with their
hose, and colorful garters were an object of display. In
Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night, "cross braced" garters are an object of some derision. In male fashion, a type of garter for holding up socks has continued as a part of male dress up to the present .
A garter is often worn by newlywed
brides. It is the groom's privilege to remove the garter and toss it to the male guests. The symbolism to
deflowering is unambiguous. Historically, this tradition also relates to the belief that taking an article of the bride's clothing would bring good luck. As this often resulted in the destruction of the bride's dress, the tradition arose for the bride to toss articles of clothing to the guests, including the garter. Sometimes, if the guests were drunk, they would try to remove the garter ahead of time, and consequently the tradition arose for the groom to remove it himself and toss it to the guests, in order to protect his bride from molestation by the guests.
At some American
high schools, it is traditional for girls to wear garters to their
prom. At the end of the evening, their partner removes the garter and keeps it as a
souvenir. In some cases, the girls exchange their garters for their partners' bow ties. The tradition of wearing garters to proms is especially prevalent in
Chicagoland and surrounding
midwestern cities.
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