Fashion denier
Apparently there still exists at least one defender of pantyhose:
I happened upon a couple of fashion how-to books that mentioned several times that wearing pantyhose is dreadfully out of date. Wearing them makes you look “like an old lady.” Bare legs give us “over 40″ that “young and hip” look. Oh, really?
Obviously, they’ve never seen my bare legs.
As I haven’t, but I applaud her willingness to experiment.
Although I’m sure this says VOLUMES about how shallow I am, the idea of pantyhose dating me without understanding why was driving me insane. And so my OCD kicked in. I went into my drawer and pulled out a pair of nude stockings and a pair of black tights (Sorry, I don’t own, will NEVER own, a pair of fishnets) and tried them on with a couple of cocktail dresses. One dress was solid black, the other a black print, and one a light bronze with colored embroidery. First, the nude. The only way you could tell if I had on nude stockings was 1. by looking really close, and 2. that my legs looked smoother. Second, the black tights. 1. I looked like an Italian widow, and 2. my ankles looked thick with the pretty, sexy, pumps.
The only thing I know about Italian widows is that Carlo Ponti died a couple of years ago and Sophia Loren is still with us, but it’s probably not safe to generalize from that single example. Props, though, for eschewing fishnets; as I said six years ago:
I have been fortunate enough over the years to have met a small number of women with incredible legs, and not once have I found myself thinking, “Gee, I wonder what she’d look like if you overlaid a pattern of polygons upon her.”
Some of them might even have worn pantyhose. Occasionally.
fillyjonk »
21 August 2009 · 8:10 am
Maybe I have a bit too much of the dramatic in my emotional make-up, but I can imagine times when looking like “an Italian widow” would not be so very undesirable.
I don’t wear hose in the summer – It’s just too hot outside, and the air conditioning in my building is too likely to be temporarily broken – but I do wear them fall and winter. Because I was raised that way. And because they DO make a person’s skin tone look better (well, if the skin tone is Screaming Fishbelly White like mine is). And it’s easier to sit and get out of cars modestly while wearing a shorter skirt if you have hose on.
Of course, I also wear slips under my dresses too, something that I am now hearing apparently went out with Edward VII. Or something like that.
Of course, the inherent ageism of the fashion industry is showing with all their cracks about how 40+ women can try to look like “less than 40.”