How did the fashion for tights change and why the transparent ones are coming back
For the next six months our wardrobe contains the most ambivalent detail - pantyhose, without which it cannot survive in the Russian climate. Here the legitimate question arises - which ones? A few years ago, the gloss and fashion bloggers left us no choice: they began to wear a comfy black mat, or in the image and fashion of fashion-shooting models and cold-resistant British women to walk bare feet, even at a temperature that tends to zero. About transparent flesh and even more so, God forbid, translucent black could be no question. But is it worth being so categorical? We tell how we got to such a life and why this season in the hosiery-pantyhose issue (as well as in fashion in general) there is much more freedom.
On the one hand, we know that bad weather does not make the weather in fashion. Seasonality gradually disappears: we see fur coats at spring shows, and bare, tanned knees - at winter ones. At the spring shows of this year, it is impossible not to notice the return of color, translucent, lace, knitted, fleecy tights, stockings and golf. Does this mean that it’s time to revise the tough rules of recent years and just learn how to combine clothes with a variety of tights and stockings? We think so.
The very idea to pull tights inevitably causes unpleasant memories from childhood. No wonder: pantyhose is a purely functional thing in our collective unconscious, designed to keep warm and, in fact, antisexual. Many people seriously believe that you should never wear tights with a man, unlike stockings - the characteristic movement of the hips supposedly horrify him. At the same time, the story reminds that once men were with predecessors of tights on a much shorter leg: it suffices to recall the paintings of the early Middle Ages and later court portraits - for example, Henry VIII, who liked to dress up in snow-white tights, and what we are today would qualify as a daring skirt. Men in tights - not only the headline of the film parody of Robin Hood, but first and foremost a historical fact.
In the twentieth century, a public demonstration of men's knitwear in obtyag remained in the area of a special theatricality: in tights you can imagine Rudolf Nureyev on the stage of the Paris Opera, the glam rock stars of the 70s led by David Bowie or Superman. In everyday life, men's tights and leggings are present as it were invisible: either as underwear, which is shyly hiding under the trousers in severe frosts, or in the form of ergonomic sportswear. In general, men returned to their pantyhose and tights their utilitarian nature.
Women's stockings before the era of emancipation, by contrast, were hidden from the eyes of the part of the wardrobe, which means - intimate and sexual, and have kept these connotations until now. From the beginning of the XVII century with the development of stocking machines begins the dark age of stockings: women will wear them everywhere, but hiding under the fluffy skirts. In the XIX century, only girls and their lovers knew about the beauty of the stockings under the dress: at this time, woolen stockings were decorated with incredible hand-made embroidery, pearls and precious stones (we send greetings to the collection of nylon socks with Simona Roshi pearls). At the beginning of the 20th century, skirts became shorter, stockings more noticeable, and along with the craze for sports and the appearance of comfortable clothing, the fashion for knee-highs came. They were worn with culottes and tennis dresses, and their stockings were lowered to the knees, drank gin, smoked and danced under jazz. In addition, in 1910, silk and cotton stockings finally appeared, everyone dreamed of.
By the end of the 1930s, DuPont was creating synthetic fiber - nylon, which is becoming part of the industrial revolution. On the first day of sales in New York, about 700 thousand pairs of nylon stockings were swept. However, with the onset of World War II, completely different things become the subject of first necessity, and the company switches over to the production of, for example, army nylon bombers. A well-known fact: during the war, stockings are in short supply, and girls paint their imitations in embers or eyeliner. The company Helena Rubinstein even has a product called “liquid tights” (in fact, it's just a foundation). With the end of the Second World War in 1945, DuPont is launching an advertising campaign in which each girl is promised stockings for Christmas.
Women's tights, as we know them, will appear only by the sunset of the 50s: before that, women wore only stockings and garters. In 1959, another synthetic material was invented - lycra. This finally made it possible to create tights that fit, keep fit and are not going to fold. Tights appear in the right place at the right time: mini-skirts and the image of baby doll just come into fashion. So, in the 60s and 70s we see pantyhose and knee-highs of various colors in combination with short skirts, boots and kitten heels. The fashion for colorful tights (and with them the leggings) will last until the 80s: confirmation of this can be found in the movie "Deadly Attraction" in 1988 with young Winona Ryder. In the 90s, on the wave of minimalism, the fashion for bare legs and school knee-highs will come, which is perfectly illustrated by Britney Spears' stupid and early clips. At the beginning of the kitsch 2000s, eccentrics Galliano and Gauthier will begin to produce models in color and flesh stockings, as well as vicious fishnet tights, on the catwalk. Transparent body tights will go somewhere in the area of "out of fashion" - mediocre and domestic.
And suddenly, in 2007, tight black tights resolutely entered the fashion - as the only true ones (only Emilio Pucci was experimenting with colored nylon at that moment). Dense, slimming and hiding any skin defects, black tights complement the collections of the best brands: Christopher Kane, A.F. Vandevorst, Bottega Veneta, Burberry Prorsum, Chalayan, Erdem, Giambattista Valli, Jonathan Saunders, DKNY, 3.1 Phillip Lim and many others. However, progressive Phoebe Faylo insisted on such tights back in 2003, and Marni in 2006. A year later, despite the dominance of black tights, multi-colored began to appear: blue and yellow, red, green, orange, gray in Céline, Peter Jensen and Maison Martin Margiela, brown in Alessandro Dell'Acqua, white matte in Gianfranco Ferré and Luisa Beccaria, Rodarte's weird, web-like, psychedelic in Anna Sui.
In 2009, after rare flashes, the dam will burst - we get the season of colorful stockings. There are a number of brands: Miu Miu, Balenciaga, Marni, Chanel, Alexander McQueen, BCBG Max Azria, Erin Fetherston and Jean Paul Gaultier. Galliano, who recently took the place of the creative director Maison Martin Margiela, always liked to style stockings in Dior collections, bodily and black transparent, with dresses with crinoline and fuchsia jackets, and in 2001 he showed mesh pantyhose. Marzhela himself, before his departure in 2008, always experimented with nylon, showing mesh tights, checkered, decorated with textured flowers, lemon and pink, matte white, reminiscent of 40s stockings.
Despite all this apparent diversity, the status of unmistakable classics, applicable in life, today there is only black tight matte tights. Perfectly smooth bare legs, invented by fashion editors ten years ago for filming and confusing an entire generation of women, even Michelle Obama’s (and recently they were illicit in the image of a business woman) are in use, but for the Russian autumn, winter and spring it is beyond good and evil. In this case, bodily tights (the so-called American tan tights) survived only in a tight office dress code. Most of the inhabitants of the planet Earth, who regularly study fashion magazines and websites, were decisively abandoned, and, in general, not without a reason: the invisible 7-10 days break up into atoms with the slightest awkward movement, in bodily ones the legs will inevitably shine like sausages in frosted look like ragdoll legs, stuffed with cotton. Should we exclude such options from your arsenal, if you have not already done so? Until they come up with innovative bodily tights without such obvious effects, it seems that yes.
However, there are many other options for tights and stockings, and the demonstrations of this and the next year prove: it’s time to learn to understand this. So, translucent black come back in fashion triumphantly, originally from the wardrobe of the fatal women of the 90s. It turns out that they look no worse than thick black ones, just in transparent they have more sex, and they ask, of course, for evening dresses or, in contrast, for heavy rough shoes. In addition, you can cheer yourself tights in the fly or hearts. Why not? Thick colored tights, especially bright, of course, controversial, as they pull all the attention to themselves. The alternative to them is transparent colored tights, which do not have such a saturated and all-consuming color, and it is easier to combine them with clothes. In addition, transparent colored tights fit well into the trendy underwear theme and to the trendy transparent things. Gray and white tight tights also have a right to exist: there are many examples proving that it is beautiful. There are also tights with metallic thread, knitted and lace, which with proper skill can be beautifully combined. Here the question is already taste, contrasts and balance.
The main recommendations, as usual, are easy to read from the podiums. In the spring 2014 Miu Miu collection, Miuccia Prada, foreshadowing the return of fashion to the 60s and 70s, showed knitted multicolored tights and knee-highs, which we seem to wear as a child. Tights were presented in combination with vinyl miniskirts, coats and suede lace-up boots, as well as evening dresses with thin straps. Surprisingly, it works on the principle of "ugly is new beautiful": beauty and deformity in the presence of irony perfectly complement each other. With a similar aesthetics, Marni worked back in 2008, and in 2010, Miuccia herself was in the Prada collection, where luxury items were styled with grandma's grandmother stockings.
Designer duo Meadham Kirchhoff also proves that colored tights are not only the prerogative of children and teenagers. So, on the show of their autumn collection, models came out on the catwalk in multi-colored golf and pantyhose in combination with elongated jackets, mini-skirts and metallic boots. According to the designers, tights need to be matched to the tone along with everything: orange - to peach, pink - to violet. The trend towards multicolored nylon was supported by Michael van der Ham. In the spring collection of Meadham Kirchhoff next year, Edward and Benjamin went even further, showing colorful tights (yellow and pink flowers, which again reminds us of Pussy Riot colored leggings) and stockings with nap. Raf Simons at the Dior fashion show neatly reminds that colored tights are a celebration even at an official event. Phillip Lim in the current fall season also stands for colored monophonic tights.
There are a few more brands that shape the fashion for certain tights and experiment with design. For example, Rodarte. In their archives there are cobwebs, textured pantyhose, bodily nylon socks with decorative elements. Nylon socks and knee-highs are a separate topic, relevant after the spring shows of Simone Rocha and No. 21, as well as this year's pre-autumn Céline collection (this is a flashback from the 2000s). Prada supported the fashion for nylon knee socks, showing their multi-colored versions (in 2007, she had already created similar ones), and in the recent Dior couture collection there were shoes imitating knee-highs. Vivienne Westwood and Olympia Le-Tan also include them in the new collection. We wrote before the coming summer about nylon stockings and golf, and it seems that after a year they should take a closer look at the style reception.
What else will we see next year? Edie Slimane stands for rock aesthetics and includes black transparent tights in the collections. Nicolas Ghesquière unexpectedly returns in the new collection of Louis Vuitton openwork black. In the new line of Giambattista Valli Giamba we see transparent white tights in peas. Karl Lagerfeld suggests wearing golden transparent tights. In addition, brands provide more unexpected solutions. Nasir Mazhar shows stockings in a new collection. Katie Hillier and Luell Bartley in the new Marc by Marc Jacobs collection are styling latex leg skirts. German company URB creates punk tights and leggings with the effect of spilled paint. DKNY developed pantyhose with a massage effect. In addition, there are already heat-resistant tights, cashmere, anti-cellulite tights. A choice is a great replacement for a monopoly.
It is obvious that today, in the era of the return of common sense, comfort and diversity, it is nonsense to walk in the frost with bare knees. If you dress for yourself, just choose a cozy and warm tights. Everything is very simple. And how to wear even warm leggings with classic clothes, we were shown four years ago.
Photo:Wikipaintings
