Okay so I’ve scrolled through two completely different narratives on this topic and both are bonkers. Like legitimately losing-your-marbles-in-opposite-directions bonkers. One was just a comment I saw on TikTok that said “pantyhose are a war crime against ankles. they died in 2015 and good riddance.” The other was a legit fashion editor on a panel I was watching clips of who said sheer tights were “the biggest hosiery comeback of the decade” like literallyWill-They-Or-Won’t-They spoil the queen’s engagement. THEY ARE BOTH RIGHT.
Like actually both of these people are right and it drives me up the wall that they’re both right because that is the meanest possible answer and partially what led me down this whole hosiery labyrinth to begin with.
Because here’s the truth, when I went out and observed real people (mineSELF included), no one I know owns pantyhose. And by pantyhose I mean nude, control top, “I am going to the DMV in 1998” pantyhose. Not one single person. But several members of my inner circle own a pair of sheer black tights that were, from a material/reality standpoint, functionally identical. They just flipped the label, changed the branding, and pulled them back out when no one was looking.
So the honest answer isn’t have they died or are they back, it’s why did we ever stop saying sheer black tights are called pantyhose?
Nobody Wears Them For The Reason Your Mom Did Anymore
The primary use case for pantyhose was the office and….office attire ain’t require that shit like it used to. My mom wore them to work every day for probably two decades because that was the uniform. Pants were required the way your butt was required to fit in those pants, it was not optional. And while there are definitely office settings that still require professionalism, that’s a standard that does not exist for people in my generation the way it did for previous ones. I’m typing this blog post from my kitchen table in sweatpants and I shoot most of my content wearing an outfit I changed out of the second my camera turned off because even people I know with “real jobs” with actual offices are opting for wide leg trousers or bare legs with loafers. Nobody feels the need to wear sheer nude hosiery to look “presentable” because the standards of what we consider “professional” have shifted.
Where I find pantyhose existent in their greates number is weddings, funerals, and grandma panties. I texted a picture of a pair I found at a vintage shop to my group chat full ON purpose just to gauge reaction and got one person responding with “omg my mom has a drawer FULL of these” and another person texting me the crying laughing emoji four times with absolutely no other context. Which answered my question better than anything else could have. They’re not offensive to us, we just literally do not see them anywhere except for formal wear or to cover weird tan lines. They feel costume now. Something you wear ironically or your grandma insists you wear before church because your “skin looks too white.”
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And I think that’s the true divide, not “young people hate pantyhose” but “young people have literally zero reason to wear pantyhose.” If we encounter pantyhose at all anymore they’re under slips dresses at weddings or because Aunt Linda made you put them on before Sunday service. They’re no longer a daily wear garment for pretty much anyone under 50, they’re an “occasion” garment. And that’s the part that flew me over the handle. You do not build outfits around “occasion” tops, you acquiesce to wearing them for the occasion and rip them off the second you can.
The Sheer Tights Trend Is Carrying All The Weight Here
Now hear me out where this starts getting muddy is…the sheer black tight trend is skewing all of these results. Sheer black tights became a THING. Fashion month was selling them hard and suddenly it was trendy for people my age (who would up until that point have flat out told you they hated pantyhose) to wear sheer tights under a slip dress or skirt as some “Y2K revival” moment. They are functionally wearing pantyhose. They’re just covering their legs in a sheer layer of nylon instead of opaque beige cotton. But my entire generation doesn’t think those are “pantyhose” because “pantyhose” sounded like something grandma keeps in her work drawer while “sheer tights” sounds like something models rocked at Fashion Week.
I was totally this person as well. Saw the trendo, bought some, posted an outfit WITH them under a mini skirt before realizing that yes actually they WILL ladder if you sit on a shitty surface because they were not up to full-day wear, and found myself having to backtrack a week later when I tried to wear them to school. Spoiler, they ended up directly donated the second I cleaned out my closet. Sorry Hamissa whoever bought a pack of them because of that post. They LOOK GREAT in photos and will probably last you one good wear if you’re unlucky.
My point is, if you asked someone who was trendy enough to buy black sheer “tights” last fall they would likely tell you they hate pantyhose. But they’re still wearing them. They’re just unaware because the brand, and situation we wear them in, changed.
So now YOU tell me, where do I come down? Dead? I don’t think they’re gone, but I also don’t think they’ve made a full-on comeback? Mascara’d? Stock photos of women wearing nude pantyhose really need to diversify their preferred seating choices because I WILL joyride that bitch if I sat on THAT stage lol.
Let me rephrase. Pantyhose as we specifically think of them for office/wedding attire are basically extinct. Sheer black tights, on the other hand, are doing just dandy.
