The Story of Tightsfashion - II
by CJ
This is the concluding part of CJ's article. It opens where CJ is trying to encourage his wife to wear better quality, longer lasting tights.Read Part 1 first.
I started off with a few pairs of Pretty Polly and Charnos from the local House of Fraser. I gave these to my wife, sat back, and waited. And waited. Of course having better quality tights in her drawer she simply left them there "for best".
Plan "B" was to remove the new tights from the packets and to mix them in with her others. At last she started to wear them, but now of course I had no idea which pair was which. It was here that I started to compile data on tights, particularly how they were made, depth and type of waistband, type of seams, toe design, finish… all to help me to identify the tights while my wife wore them, or at least when she took them off. I started to keep records and this data became the embryo from which the TightsFashion web site developed.
Although no expert on hosiery my wife was no fool, and she soon realised that there was a far bigger selection of tights in her drawer than normal. She quickly became adept at spotting the good stuff and putting it away for best.
When I asked her why she wasn’t wearing the tights I was buying for her she made the suggestion, or at least comment, that got things moving with the site. She said "You wouldn’t like tights so much if you wore them everyday". The penny dropped, I didn’t need to wait for her to wear a pair of tights and then try to work out which they were and attempt some notes on how they looked that day. I could try them out myself! From the on I had fully recorded the details of the tights before I let my wife have them. The up side of this was I only passed on to her the tights that I thought looked and felt best and provided the best value for money. My wife now wears Falke tights at around £7-£10 a pair all the time and won’t touch cheap hosiery.
It was a chatting to a friend about buying hosiery and lingerie for wives and girlfriends and they suggested I share my research via a web site. I decided to give it a shot and after a pretty slow beginning TightsFashion started to get a lot of traffic.
Feedback to the site made it clear that of the male visitors to the site more were looking to buy tights for themselves than for their ladies. A proportion of these were CD/TV visitors, some more were "fetish" wearer and a high proportion were regular guys like me who just chose to wear tights as part of their regular wardrobe.
It was March 2006 when I added a short feature to TightsFashion on the subject of Tights for men, and with it a link to Geraden’s Blog. Whenever I review tights now I try to keep in mind the fact that many of the readers are male. Without shouting it from the rooftops I try to get across in each review that at least part of it is based on me wearing the tights. I have looked at a few brands where the tights are specifically designed for men, but my experience from looking at over 400 styles of tights is that in many cases the quality European brands that cater for taller wearers sell tights designed for women that are ideal for men.
Since the summer of 2006 TightsFashion has become a well-established part of the online hosiery business. Most of the online shops supply samples for testing and even testing a pair most every day we have a good two months work here and waiting. We have yet to fully address all of the "tights for men" brands such as Comfilon and ActivSkin and I think the time may be right. With make models in tights at recent catwalk shows, and Gerbe announcing a range of sheer and opaque hosiery for men it looks like men in tights may be about to become if not mainstream then at least acceptable fashion.
If you are looking for inspiration for tights for yourself or a loved on drop along and read the reviews.
The latest development on CJ's site is the use (by permission) of photographs by Pavel Dvorak. LycraPavel, as he is known, is extremely talented and probably the best hosiery photographer in the world. - G
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