Reviewing ways to modernize the Marine Corps and serve common sense, a requirement for women to wear pantyhose when in their formal uniforms has been shed.
“I think it’s great the Marine Corps is now giving the option,” said Sgt. Major Elena Rodriguez, a command senior adviser for the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Pendleton who has served in the Marines for 24 years.
She had already moved to wearing slacks – another option for females for both of their service and dress uniforms – once she got tattoos on her legs, she said. “I think as long as a female Marine looks professional, in the end, it’s the overall appearance.”
Marine Commandant Gen. Eric Smith issued his pantyhose-optional order March 11, saying if a Marine still chooses to wear hosiery, “the hue should match the skin tone.”
“Within the spirit of common sense, our Uniform Board recommended a change to the policy,” a Marine spokesman for Smith said. “The Marine Corps prioritizes its people above all things. Our leaders know, at an instinctual level, that we have a sacred and personal responsibility to lead, mentor and care for our Marines.”
Prior to Smith’s ruling, women were required to wear full-length, nylon pantyhose with skirts when they wearing their green service uniform or their formal dress blue uniform.
“I didn’t like the pantyhose when I had to wear them in the heat and humidity,” said Georgia Reyna, a retired master gunnery sergeant from the 1st Marine Logistics Group at Camp Pendleton. “The pantyhose are not easy to pull up to wear after a shower in the heat.”
But not everyone will be tossing their pantyhose just yet.
Major Lindsey Pirek, a spokesperson with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said she’ll continue wearing skirts and pantyhose when she is in those uniforms.
“I’d like to retain some femineity,” she said, adding that from her experience at Marine Headquarters at the Pentagon, skirts are worn more regularly there.
Sgt. Alisha Taylor, a comptroller with Camp Pendleton’s 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said she feels like the younger women in the service are picking pants over skirts.
“It’s like 95%,” said Taylor, 28, of her guess of women at Camp Pendleton who pick trousers. Her issued skirt has been gathering dust in her closet.
“I never wore it,” she added. “It probably doesn’t fit now because it was issued after boot camp.”
The Marine Corps and the Army were the last two service branches that required hosiery. The Air Force removed the requirement in 2021, and the Navy a year later.
According to retired Col. Mary Stremlow, who researched the topic for the Marine Corps and wrote about it in a publication for the History Division, the basic women’s wardrobe was first selected in 1942, even before the Marine Corps Women’s Reserves.
The guidance was for women to be “dressed in traditional Marine forest green with red chevrons.” The commandant then insisted, Stremlow wrote, that the women “look like Marines as much as possible.”
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The uniforms were developed by Anne Lentz, who later became a Marine and headed up the Uniform Unit. Lentz had worked in the school uniform department of a large New York City Department store.
The uniforms changed very little until a new wardrobe was designed in 1952 by a French uniform designer. Hosiery, during that era, was described as “lady-like and fashionable full-length, beige-seamed stockings” that were required with all service and dress uniforms. Since nylon, rayon and silk were rationed during wartime shortages, women in some of the other services were allowed to use leg makeup, but not Marines, Stremlow wrote.
In 1979, female Marines were issued maternity uniforms with trousers or slacks, and in 1983, the service uniform started to include green trousers.
Most recently, in September, the Marines dropped the mandate that women could only wear skirts for their dress blues. The dress blues jacket was also previously changed to look more like the male Marines’ coat and women are also allowed to wear dress flats as an option to pumps.
The Marine’s Uniform Board is surveying female Marines on a number of questions related to uniforms, said Major Josh Pena, a spokesman at the Training and Education Command. The board reviews requests from the rank-and-file to balance clothing in terms of practicality, quality and cost within realistic supply and fiscal constraints to ensure that the Marine Corps maintains functional, traditional and distinctive uniforms, according to its mission statement.
According to the survey, some changes proposed for females include an optional boat coat with a scarlet lining now worn by males, black leather pumps worn with the evening dress uniform instead of the presently-issued suede or fabric-covered pumps, and changing the female neck tab to one color for all uniforms.