During the same season that Chanel, Jonathan Anderson, and Versace sent technicolor and metallic tights onto the runway, the Olsen twins used American tan versions (the kind of hosiery that removes all sense of life from the legs) as makeshift belts. The bloghaus and octogenarian aesthetics of the fall 2022 collections have yet to enter the mainstream… but there remains an alternative. Last night, while at the shows in Paris, Hailey Bieber wore a chocolate-brown mini dress from Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent with chocolate-brown glazed leather sling-backs and chocolate-brown tights.
No more than 10 denier in thickness, Bieber’s look called to mind Anne Bancroft rolling up a transparent stocking under the watchful gaze of Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. The patient zero of what TikTokers are calling “latté make-up”, Bieber matched her coffee-toned beat to her nylon pins. These aren’t the flesh-toned, old-maiden hose of yore: these are suggestive and executive and unusual. In a world of “body foundation” and “leg oil”, we don’t see nearly as many tights as we should.
This season, Carine Roitfeld fully encased Givenchy’s heels in sheer pantyhose (taking Kylie Jenner’s styling quirk to the extreme). And then, of course, there’s Miuccia Prada, who is known for transforming the dour and frigid into something that feels transgressive. Matte nylons tugged prudently above the knee for spring 1994, low denier socks sagging like sausage skins for spring 2016, and all those off-coloured nylons in Miu Miu’s fall 2023 collection. As autumn dawns and the mercury begins to drop, be like Hailey Bieber and say “Nair” to bare legs.