Pantyhose coming back in style? Ariana Grande, Duchess Kate wear the trend

They say fashion trends are cyclical, and it just might be time for pantyhose to return to our wardrobes.


In recent months, style experts and news outlets alike have been proclaiming pantyhose as a style trend to watch for 2016, citing polished celebrities like Duchess Kate, who's often spotted with nude-nylon-covered legs.

Celebrity stylist Ali Levine pointed to New York Fashion Week last fall to explain how it all got started.

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Why pantyhose sales are still surprisingly strong

For much of the 20th century, pantyhose were an essential component of any polished woman’s outfit. But then, many Gen X and Boomers stopped wearing pantyhose years ago, dismissing them as uncomfortable and easily ruined by runs. Most Millennial women have never even worn them, and thanks to more casual office wear, they don’t need to in most offices.

Overall sales for sheer hose are down 8% in the 12-month period ending in September, according to the NPD Group / Consumer Tracking Service, and just last year, Cosmopolitan’s style editor declared that hose was not okay.

But pantyhose is far from extinct. In fact, it is enjoying a small bit of a popularity among younger women, according to the NPD Group. Sheer hosiery had $482 million in sales in the one year period ending May 2015, the NPD Group reports, and 27% of those sales were to Millennials, which considering its increase of 9%, the group calls a notable revival.

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Why it's time to embrace tights (and how to do them)

To listen to some women talk about tights, you’d think you had stumbled across a group of foot-binding survivors. Repressive, oppressive – there is not an “ive” that hasn’t been lobbed at tights in recent years. How ironic: tights were invented in 1959 by Allen Gant in response to his wife, who’d had it up to here with suspenders and garters. For a heady moment, tights were emblems of freedom (see Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton cavorting in their mini skirts). Technological advances mean that, theoretically, they still are. They keep you warm. They hide a multitude of leg issues, real and imaginary. They’re your best hope of acquiring legs like Gigi Hadid’s. If you wear skirts in January, you wear tights. End of.

Except – it isn’t. As recently as last winter, fashion experts were doling out tips for bare legging it in the bleakest months. Favourites included ankle boots with sheepskin insoles, invisi-shoe socks or, if you’re British, 7/8th trousers, allowing you to show the smallest sliver of naked flesh, just enough to prove you were tuned in to the zeitgeist. But why bother when you can just wear… tights?

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