Lovely, Awful Tights!

by Kaj

We all know the 1960s success story of tights, the huge invasion of a new kind of hosiery that changed the fashion in one night and made (together with jeans and pants) all the garter belts, girdles and traditional nylon stockings unnecessary and old fashioned. Tights liberated women to dress in a new, freer and more comfortable way, and put the focal point on the lower part of the body, on legs.

From the mid 60s onwards millions and millions pairs of tights were sold every year, and it was more or less natural and a matter of course to wear tights as everyday clothing. No one questioned this seriously until the beginning of 1990s.

There was a change in fashion, and new ideals arose. More and more barelegged models were seen on catwalks and in fashion images. The Hollywood celebrities walking on the red carpet and many characters in American TV series proclaimed that tights hadn’t any functions anymore.

The most important "fashion life-style" series was probably Sex and the City. You could frequently see shoe freak Carrie walking in the Manhattan streets late night in open sandals and uncovered legs while the snowflakes were dancing around her. Bare legs became a rule.

In the Scandinavian fashion magazines winter clothing was promoted in arctic landscapes by anorexic, pale models standing barelegged in the huge snow piles. The manager-in-chief (or what was her status?) of the Vogue Magazine banned tights and forbade the employees to wear nylons at the office.

When discussing about tights you could hear more and more complaints that tights were uncomfortable, itchy, badly fitting, sweaty, ugly, gliding, fragile, laddering, expensive and whatever. They were a creation of Satan! Or at least a product of MEN who forced women to wear them for their own selfish (commercial and sexist) purposes.

Of course there were tens of thousands women who still wore tights every week but didn’t make any noise about it. Nylons were just a necessary part of the office uniform or the party dress, or to keep oneself warm. They didn't raise your street credibility, they were simply too mainstream. And when someone was talking about tights the negative aspects were pointed out like a mantra that you have learnt by heart, a speechless consensus.

The hosiery industry faced sinking markets and incomes. To maintain the status quo the manufacturers had to invent new products and to develop the old ones. "Invisible, sandal toe, patterned, glossy, functional, anti slippery, lifting, moisturizing, supporting, compressing, shrinking, etc " tights with more comfort, softness and durability. They hardly convinced the hostile or critical masses of consumers. Many companies had to shut down.

This was going on until recently. But something happened for some two, three years ago. A new interest for dresses; skirts and city shorts put the hosiery products in a new light. The fashion industry invented tights all over again, and manufacturers of legwear were assuring that tights could now be visible and an active visual thing by themselves. On the streets you could see more and more tights, opaques in both traditional conservative colours and experimental bright nuances and patterns alongside with sheers, ribbed and knitted ones. Everything went.

The new trend has been accompanied with a new attitude. A visit to hundreds of fashion blogs and forums reveals that tights have become a desirable topic, almost an end in itself. Women show their new hosiery acquisitions and tell the others what kinds of tights they prefer to wear and give advice where to buy this and that kind of tights. ‘I hope that autumn arrives early because I’d like to dress up in my new skirt and soft warm tights.’ Others talk about combining opaque tights with open or peep toe sandals, a sure taboo topic even three years ago. ‘Look, now I am able to wear sandals almost the year around.’ And fashion magazines are full of tights clad legs.

The word ‘awful’ has been replaced with ‘lovely’.

What has happened? What makes the uncomfortable tights desirable, soft and nice in one night? Are the poor women just victims of the omnipotent fashion industry, which puts words in their mouth? Or is it so that the product development has finally borne fruit? Have tights really adopted new qualities that make them decisively superior to those manufactured some ten years ago? It is hardly so simple. But the poor years of the hosiery industry broadened the assortment and forced to develop more comfortable fabrics and models. I don’t find any other clothes that have such a wide range. You can choose among tens of different brands, and every brand has hundreds of different colours, knits, patterns etc. It is richness and diversity.

To make it short: First the fashion industry liberated women from girdles and stockings, then from tights, now from freezing bare legs. What’s next?

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tags: lovely  awful  fashion  products  trend  

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