Fashion:What I wore this week: fancy tights

If bare legs is at root a New York thing – cover-girl gloss underpinned with balls of steel – then the vogue for lace is very Parisian

 
I know from experience that nothing annoys you, my beloved readers, more than the suggestion that you might consider leaving the house without black opaque tights while there is an “r” in the month. I can wax lyrical about cocktail hour athleisure or hold forth on the preeminence of ponchos, and y’all are the very model of liberal tolerance. But breathe one word against a life lived in 70 denier, and I am met with fire and brimstone.

I am neither passionately in favour of nor vehemently opposed to opaque black tights. Sometimes I wear them. They have a no-nonsense sleekness, like blacked-out windows, that fits with how I feel about getting dressed lots of the time. But with some fabrics and colours, that same blacked-out window vibe can kill an outfit that needs the flesh and blood warmth of skin to lift it – this effect is magnified on camera, which is why I rarely wear opaques for these photographs.

Hosiery being such a touchpaper issue, it is with some trepidation that I bring up a trend I have noticed among fashion week attendees for lace and fishnet tights. If bare legs is at root a New York thing – cover-girl gloss underpinned with balls of steel – then the vogue for lace, net or other fancy tights, championed by the Saint Laurent catwalk and Carine Roitfeld, is very Parisian. It is flirty rather than icy, more charm than killer instinct.

For day, it’s brilliantly simple: lace tights work best with black skirts or dresses. You could do a lot worse than taking a cue from Carine Roitfeld, who sticks to black day in, day out – with the occasional white shirt or charcoal grey herringbone jacket – and always looks amazing. For evening, I find a short-ish black sweater dress (I don’t do short-short, but I totally would if I could) with lace tights and black ankle boots really works as a grownup night out outfit. Because there comes a point when Saturday night means going to a nice restaurant and maybe for a couple of cocktails, but you still don’t want to look like you are out for your golden frigging wedding anniversary, and flirty tights help. Is that contentious? You tell me.