Category: Blog

Tights are back in style, offering a timeless, sleek, and sultry addition to any outfit. Perfect for light layering in tricky spring weather, tights bring an elegant touch that elevates your look. Once considered a grandma’s accessory, tights are now a must-have for modern fashionistas. From fun polka dots to bold statement pieces, sheer tights are everywhere.

“Sheer clothing is a major trend, and an easy way to implement it into their wardrobe is through tights,” says stylist Justine Logue. “It elevates a simpler outfit, making it a trend that many people can adopt with items already in their closet.” Indeed, incorporating sheer tights into your daily wardrobe opens up numerous outfit possibilities tailored to your style.

Looking for inspiration? Here are our 7 favorite ways to style sheer tights for any aesthetic and outfit.

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Bold Red

If you want to make a statement and capture everyone’s attention, cherry red is your color. With recent trends like “Tomato Girl Summer” and cherry red nails, bold and vibrant hues are in. It’s no surprise that red tights are now making their mark.

To embrace this trend, try a monochromatic look. For instance, take inspiration from Beatrice Granno. Pair sheer red tights with matching shorts. Add coordinating shoes and a blazer. The result is a stylish and elegant ensemble.

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Delicate Lace

A pop of lace adds a touch of elegance. Balance delicate, feminine lace tights with something edgier, like leather shorts. Leather and lace have always complemented each other, creating a timeless combination that always looks amazing, no matter how you style it.

For a bolder look, pair lace tights with patterned tops. Ensure your shoes are sleek and minimal to match the edgy shorts. Avoid too many conflicting patterns; instead, aim for a balanced and chic outfit.

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Fishnets

Is there anything sexier than fishnet tights? They’re the ultimate sheer legwear, adding an unmatched edge to any outfit. Fishnets aren’t just trendy—they also bring texture and depth, instantly elevating your look.

Pair them with a sleek black pump and an oversized blazer for a chic “I-just-threw-this-on” style. It’s the epitome of femme fatale allure.

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No Pants, No Problems

 

If you adore your classic black sheer tights, consider stepping out of your comfort zone. Ditch your pants and embrace tights as a stylish alternative. They’re increasingly replacing full pants or acting as a semi-covering for ultra-mini skirts.

To rock this bold trend, simply pair them with a bodysuit. It’s an effortless way to feel like a celebrity in seconds.

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Schoolgirl Aesthetic

If it’s good enough for Olivia Rodrigo, it’s perfect for us too. Embrace a touch of boarding school chic by layering sheer tights under a plaid skirt. Complete the look with ankle socks and loafers for the ultimate cool girl vibe.

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All About Boots

We might be biased, but shoes truly complete every outfit. For a seamless transition from dinner to a night out, knee-high boots paired with tights are essential. If it’s chilly, layer with a leather jacket for both warmth and added edge.

Accessorize with bold rings and a graphic tee to complete the look effortlessly!

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Say Pink? Say Less

For the maximalist who loves to make a statement, pairing pink tights with a floral ensemble is perfect for spring. Don’t forget to accessorize! Experiment with purses, earrings, and coats to add layers of dimension and whimsy to your look.

 

 

Are you ready for the next big thing in hosiery? We’ll give you a hint: much like red tights, this trend also owes props to “Gossip Girl’s” queen bee Blair Waldorf for being an early adopter. If you’re thinking of white tights, then you’re absolutely right.

This white-hot trend probably comes as no surprise to close followers of online aesthetics — hosiery is a staple in the coquette and balletcore styles, which have dominated in recent months. Brands whose influence is evident in these trends, like Miu Miu, Simone Rocha and Sandy Liang, use tights and stockings to add a playful twist to feminine silhouettes.

This trend has been a slow (but white-hot) burn. Back in 2020, white tights dominated Chanel’s spring couture show, appearing in dozens of looks. While they didn’t take off right away, they’re now leaping into the spotlight, including on our Alexa cover star Sarah Paulson.

Chanel has once again adopted the accessory as a mainstay in its spring 2024 couture collection — featured in most of the show’s looks, including the one worn by runway opener Margaret Qualley.

Last year, Gigi Hadid showed herself ahead of the curve when she wore Malaikaraiss in NYC, after rocking the tights for Chanel in 2020. Recent A-list wearers — from “Mean Girls” star Angourie Rice wearing Theory and Kristen Stewart in Chanel to street-style mavericks at New York Fashion Week — have proven that the trend is ready to strut its stuff in 2024.

There are two main schools of thought among fashionistas who rock the white-tight look. The first opts for a monochrome or near-monochrome look, where white tights — usually opaque — smooth the transition as the eye travels from outfit to shoes. Hadid, Rice, Stewart, and influencer Saskia Teje are all fans of this head-to-toe blanc look, which is a sleek and classy way to elevate an outfit.

The second option favors maximalism, where white tights are used as a fun, feminine accessory to highlight a short hem or playful shoes.

Fashion’s latest eyebrow-raising trend is ditching pants and daring you to say something about it. The liberation of legs and the air of sexual ownership that comes with it, however, stand on ground laid decades ago. So who’s wearing the pants here? Speaking literally, certainly not fashion’s tastemakers. On runways and red carpets, our most stylish stars have ditched their pants entirely—but don’t let that fool you into thinking they’re not taking charge. Quite the opposite is true.

In a maximally minimal moment, wide-leg jeans, the bigger the better, are in the mode—do not even speak the name of the skinny.

At the same time, celebrities and designers are somehow covering themselves entirely with tights and hose while simultaneously letting it all hang out. The fashion set has found a way to reframe that most staid accessory, a pair of tights, and turn it into a daring and, dare we say, sexy centerpiece. Who knew a little bit of nylon could make such a big statement?

Kristen Stewart has forgone pants, and so have Jenners both Kendall and Kylie, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Hailey Bieber, Emma Corrin, Bianca Censori, and a lot of models—for Bottega Veneta, Alaïa, Miu Miu, the list goes on. In high-fashion circles lately, it’s all upper thigh as far as the eye can see, a pandemic of pantslessness, with sheer tights and pantyhose standing in for trousers and skirts, underpinnings as outerwear.

Stewart’s stylist, Tara Swennen, who has been working with the actor ever since her Twilight days, is responsible for that daring, barely-there Bettter bodysuit that Stewart paired with sheer black hose—extremely visible control-top waistband and all—that 34-year-old Stewart wore last month to the premiere of Love Lies Bleeding.

That thick black waistband laid bare across Stewart’s midsection can be read as an in-your-face sort of saying the quiet part out loud, being in control of one’s own control top, the shaper of one’s own shapewear, commander of the commando, empowerer of the 20–30 denier, and all that, but the declarative statement look actually began as a happy accident.

Swennen and Stewart had fallen in love with the ultra-high-cut Bettter piece, which the design house had suggested be paired with tights or hose.

“It’s really hard to find hose these days that don’t have a control top” Swennen explained. “And I was like, I really need something where you don’t see that because this thing is so small. It became like Mission: Impossible. And then when we tried on the final pair that we wore, there was a little bit peeking out, and I looked at it and I was like, ‘Oh, man, all right. Well, that didn’t work.’”

And then we were like ‘…or did it?’”

Head tilt. Considered pause. Against all odds, the in-your-face swath of the waistband became an elegant juxtaposition with the minimalism of the barely-there sarong. Not long after the premiere, Stewart walked the streets of New York City in flesh-colored hose, complete with structural reinforcement around the thighs, topped with a pair of beige cashmere cable-knit briefs. As W magazine declared, “it’s one thing to pull off the no-pants trend in a photography studio and an entirely different beast to actually champion it during a random Tuesday afternoon.”

While the likes of Kendall Jenner have worn hosiery as part of a sort of street style mullet—chill sweater on top, “wait, where did your pants go?” on bottom—Stewart’s take, contrasting coquettish hosiery with draped chain mail tops or mesh bras, is decidedly more aggressive, in line with the noir film she just released.

Swennen pointed at shapewear and underpinnings as “something that used to bind, and now it’s something that women use as a voice of sexuality and freedom…. We really wanted to harness that.”

Think back to 2018 and all the brouhaha over whether Meghan Markle did or didn’t wear nude pantyhose on royal outings, and whether not wearing them was a sign of disrespect toward Queen Elizabeth. It wasn’t and still isn’t an actual royal rule to wear pantyhose, but the conversation generated by those glimpses of Meghan’s bare calves is matched in intensity by the chatter around Stewart’s presentation of herself through the sheer closed-toe-nylon filter of her own choosing.

With visions of drugstore L’eggs dancing in our heads, it’s tempting to say that these aren’t your grandmother’s pantyhose. Except, in more ways than one, they kind of are exactly that.

Stewart, the Jenners, Bieber, and the army of the pantsless not only share legacy brands with their predecessors, but a mindset. Mod fashion was inescapable in the ’60s and ’70s, with women embracing girlish silhouettes and trading the full girdle-slip-garter combo of their own mothers for tights and hose, celebrating their youth and trying to extend it however they could, sidestepping away in hosiery-clad feet from the expectation that they would get married and start having children.

In 1965, Life magazine wrote that Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick was “doing more for black tights than anyone since Hamlet.” Twiggy and Audrey Hepburn, too, divined the fashions of today, donning hot pants and miniskirts with their hosiery and walking so that Stewart could one day ditch the pants altogether and run.

Speaking of runs: Swennen acknowledged the risks of placing so much faith in one fragile pair of hose, where a single snag can spell disaster.

“I have backups, I’m a Virgo,” she said. Somehow, she said, none of Stewart’s tights-as-pants looks needed replacing on the fly, though given the actor’s ability to roll with the proverbial punches, she’d “probably just go with it” anyway. Even so: “I always carry backups.” Her emergency tool kit: “A bit of chapstick, a safety pin, and an extra backup in my bag wherever we go.”

There’s one more important voice from the past that must be heard on the matter: that of Blair Waldorf.

TV’s Gossip Girl was an early-aughts must-watch for the fashion-conscious and drama-thirsty set. In the season two episode “Chuck in Real Life,” Blair, (played by Leighton Meester), who rules the Upper East Side with an iron fist and a stylish headband, briefly subjects a peon to a sartorial “disciplinary hearing” in the courtyard of their tony private school.

“I didn’t realize—” a hapless girl named Kelsey begins murmuring.

Blair cuts her off, acid in her authority: “That tights are not pants? Honestly.”

Lenn K. Rosenfeld, who wrote the 2008 episode, affirmed the stance to Vanity Fair. “Women—people—can wear whatever they want, but Blair Waldorf’s words are timeless and still stand,” Rosenfeld explained via email. “Tights are not pants.”

Glow in the dark net stockings are quite hot recently. Is this a new technology? How does it work? This is a quite interesting story. Let’s dig this with Thriving, the leading hosiery manufacturer.

Traditional Way

First, glow materials on apparel is not a new thing. People did this for a long time. Mostly this is done by printing. To be specific, by screen printing. See the below(  https://www.ebay.com/itm/223480048651).

The theory behind this is simple. Mix the illuminate material in the printing and it will do the work. The side effect is also obvious. It is chemical. It does harm to human body. Maybe it won’t have too much affect on an outer cloth, say jacket or jeans. These are not next to human’s skin. However, if we are talking about pantyhose, or tights, it will be a different story. This remains as an issue till the new illuminate comes out.

New Illuminate Yarn

Before we move further on this yarn, let’s take some steps back to the production of nylon. See the below picture. Basically people boil nylon chips to liquid with heat. Then nylon fibers are extruded from it in a special device. This is the most simple way to describe the whole process.

Strontium aluminatemade from rare earth is luminescent. Scientist add strontium aluminate powder into nylon salt. In this way, we get the luminescent nylon salt. With the final extrusion process, illuminate nylon comes to the world as a result. Two main benefits for this way: the illuminate function is both permanent and healthy.

First, mixing the two in early chip stage ensures the permanent function. Unlike the screen printing way, this is done much earlier so the two is actually one thing. So no matter how you handle this yarn, wash or iron, this illuminate function will last for ever.

Second, this illuminate yarn is healthy. Healthy is not only in production site but also in materials.(See Thriving’s healthy production workshops https://ytthriving.com/)It is neither chemical nor radiation. All in all, it is just earth fundamentally. So whether they are in outer clothes or inner layer, it does no hard to human body.

Thriving, the leading hosiery manufacturer, makes glow in the dark net stockings in this illuminate nylon. Let’s enjoy some pictures of this style.

We have shared the history of yarns in stockings in last chapter. Now, let’s stay with Thriving, the leading stockings supplier, for the second part of this story: how it looks like nowsdays.

100% Nylon Way

Pure nylon stockings are still in the market. Two reasons for that. One is obviously for cheap cost. You can find these 100% nylon stockings either in stores or online shops. Usually brands sell them in multi-packs such as 3PP or 5PP.  Some brands give them nicer names: value packs or essential packs.

Nylon yarn in these multipacks is usually 100% draw textured yarn. Another name of it is DTY. DTY is the most elastic version of nylon.  This makes ladies won’t feel too rigid in wearing these stockings without spandex.

Another reason is for vintage purpose. Under this case, the price is actually not cheap. A famous example is Cervin’s Vintage Stockings (check here for more details: https://www.cervin-store.com/en/4-nylon-stockings) These are basically retro fashion products. In Cervin’s Vintague ranges, you can see lots of traditional garters or suspenders. This will easily bring you back to the golden times of stockings. More than 70 years ago!

50% Covered Yarn & 50% Nylon Yarn Way

This means stockings contain both covered yarn and nylon yarn. In professional way, the name is alternative course stockings. Normally there are 4 courses in the stockings.  For alternative course stockings, 2 courses are covered yarn and 2 courses are nylon.

This is a quite popular way in today’s stockings market. There are 2 benefits of doing so. First is for good transparency effect. This is more for sheer stockings styles. Covered yarn is thicker than pure nylon. With using half and half, the fabric turns to be uneven. This allows more light to go through. This is why the alternative course stockings look more transparent.

The second benefit is for cheaper cost. This is more for opaque stockings. Covered yarns are more expensive than nylon yarns. Using covered yarns in 2 courses are certainly cheaper than using them in 4 courses. Take a 40 denier stockings for example. The good quality one normally uses 2040/36(This is the covered yarn spec. It means 20 denier spandex covered by 40 denier nylon) in all 4 courses. To make the cost cheaper, some brands also use 2040/36 in 2 courses and 40/36 nylon in the other 2 courses. This sacrifices some on thickness but certainly improves the cost. “This is like a secret that no professionals want to share”, said Mr. Lee, technical manager of Thriving, the leading stockings supplier in China.

100% Covered Yarn Way

Another common way in today’s market. It means covered yarns are in all 4 courses. People also call this all courses stockings. It won’t be as transparent as alternative ones. On contrary, it gains more durability and elasticity.

It is easy to understand the extra durability. It is thicker by using 2 more covered yarns. At the same time, with all 4 courses in the same yarns, the fabric surface is everner and smoother. This helps to withstand more tension and pressure in wearing.

Extra elasticity comes from the 2 more spandexes. We’ve learned the story about spandex in last chapter. The more spandex, the more elasticity. You may have heard the compression stockings, support stockings or energising stockings. Different names but basically same thing. They all use thicker spandexes to create compression feeling. For example, normal sheer pantyhose will use 20 denier spandex. Compression ones will use 30 denier, 40 denier or even 70 denier.

Thriving, the leading stockings supplier, once designed an energising style. It used 30 denier spandex. Meanwhile, Thriving put different tensions on different parts. Thigh is looser. Knee is smoother. Calf is tighter. This brings extra support and comfor as it suits the nature of human body.

One more thing to add. Any functional stockings, if the functions are from yarns, are normally in all courses way. Why? Just because only this way can ensure sufficient content to perform the function. Take ladder resist stockings for example. Some brands also call it run resist. The function comes from the special spandex. It will be melted and work as as a glue to bond all fibers under 122 degrees on boarding machine(See the machine picture here: https://ytthriving.com/hosiery/)When this special spandex are made to covered yarns and used in all courses, it then creates the greatest ladder resist function.

When 2022 Tour de France started from Copenhagen, audience gets the chance to enjoy very exciting races. Meanwhile, a new helmet appears in front of them. Some media define it as weird look thing. However, with the innovative sheer inner layer made by Thriving, the leading stockings supplier, the new helmet does help with the performance of riders.

According to Pierre Latour, this secret weapon can help save 26 seconds over a 40 km time trial. No wonder that is a quite obvious improvement considering the tight competition among riders. Wants to get more details about it?  Lee, R&D manager of Thriving,  the leading stockings supplier in China, will share the story with us.

The Headache for Riders

Traditional material for helmet’s inside part is foam with hole designs on both foam and helmet. This is for airflow and abstraction of heat in races.

Even with all these designs, the stickness between head and foam surface is still a headache. The sweat in races is the cause. Designers think adding an extra thin layer can be the cure. With creating more space for airflow,  it can also help with tidying up rider’s hair. A perfect one-stone-to-kill-two-birds solution while the key point is to find the right material.

Stockings, to be exact, sheer stockings fabric is the number 1 choice from the beginning. However, when this was first tried in Europe,designers soon found that it won’t do the work. Sheer stockings are too fragile. In hosiery words, laddering or running. just as what people feel about it. The project was on hold for a while.

Thriving’s Involvement

” When received the request from clients, I  think they made the right choice ” . Lee recalled the project with a satisfying smile. He is one of the veterans in stockings filed since 1995. Experiencing the peak and trough of the industry, Lee gained the instinct of finding the right answer to different requests. He chose ladder resist sheer stockings as the base fabric. This is a quite mature technology of Thriving who has been working with its Japanese yarn vendors from 2007. Marks & Spencer was the first brand that worked with Thriving for its product ranges(Check more on http://www.marksandspencer.com). With the special elastane used in it, ladder resist sheer stockings can prevent holes from laddering with still keeping the same stretchability and comfort(Thriving’s sheer stockings with this technology https://ytthriving.com/hosiery/). Most import thing for helmet layer is its durability. With lots of cutting and sewing, ladder resist fabric can ensure a reliable durability after all these manual operations. This makes a sheer but durable layer possible from a technical point of view.

Choosing the right fabric is the first step. Next move is to find the way of creating suitable shape for head and neck. It is not that easy to just knit a piece of stockings leg and used that as extra layer. “That will be just suitable for bank robbing!” Lee laughed for his explanation. “The volume of a leg is not large enough for head especially for a comfortable fitting to rider’s head. Therefore, we need to find other ways.”

The Process of Exploration

Lee soon found the panty part is the answer. In pantyhose stockings, panty part are two separate pieces joined together. The volume is sufficient for needs while still flexible enough for cutting and sewing. Lee cut a openning in the center for rider’s face. At the same time, he designed a closing on the two legs by extending the seaming from center to the very end. This made the initial prototype. “There are several rounds of adjusting sizes for fitting”, Lee said, “Good thing is sheer stockings fabric is so stretchy that a slight adjustment can do a big work. The process is not that torturing”

A new issue soon came to the table after trials. The extra layer was not able to bring enough air flow. Rider even felt the fabric was sticked to face more than the orginal foam surface. Lee put it on himself and tested the function in running for couple of times. Very quickly he figured out the reason. stockings were usually dyed with silicone softener for soft touch effect. However, in this layer product, silicone becomes a barrier for air flow as it created an invisible wall on the surface. By changing to a new eco-softener, Lee finally made the fabric effective for its designed function.

“Always no stop for innovation”, Lee says, “especially for stockings industry. I feel hard to admit that this industry is declining due to fashion trend but that is the fact. In this case, maybe only innovation can save the industry. That is why we still survive and stay as the leading stockings supplier”.