ARE THESE THE PERFECT TIGHTS?
As a British fi rm comes up with a revolutionary pair, we go behind the seams of the ever more competitive hosiery market
AT 22 quid a pop they’re hardly the cheapest tights on the high street but according to the manufacturers they are the Rolls- Royce of legwear. Heist, a new British manufacturing fi rm, says that it has created the perfect pair: tights which don’t snag, wrinkle or sag.
Hand- sewn in Italy and with a more elasticated waistband than normal , Heist’s new pantyhose products, which sell for £ 19 to £ 22, are the result of a year spent working with 67 women, come in shades of nude and opaque and are just the latest in the lengthy history of hosiery when it comes to packing a punch for your pins.
H eist founder Edzard van der Wyck wants his company to become one of the premier destinations for legwear lovers and it’s easy to see why. Hosiery is big business: according to research fi rm Technavio, the global market is set to reach more than £ 25 billion by 2020 and who wouldn’t want a slice of that.
But the perfect pair is hard to fi nd: “Tights are a tolerated but hated product,” said Van der Wyck. “If you ask women what they think of tights at fi rst they say they’re fi ne but then they admit they can’t wait to rip them off at the end of the day. No one enjoys wearing them. We’ve cracked the perfect tights.”
Van der Wyck’s is not the only high- profi le attempt to break into the market: another comes from Bianca Miller. A fi nalist on The Apprentice 2014 she wasn’t chosen as Lord Sugar’s business partner but undaunted she launched her own company featuring 45 different skin shades the following year. Now stocked by Selfridges and breaking into the US market, if nothing else The Apprentice clearly gave a leg- up to her career.
But these latest tights are a step further still. They are differ- ent from standard tights because of that elasticated waist. The material used is elastane, which is used in sportswear and doesn’t sag or leave marks on the body and while normal tights have 500 to 1,000 spirals of elastic fi bre around each thread, Heist tights use 5,000. “Just like the thread count in sheets, the higher the count the better,” the company says. And as they have no seams they lie perfectly under clothes.
Given the fact that there can’t be a woman in the country who doesn’t have a drawer- full of nylons they are actually a recent invention in ladies’ wear.
In 1959 Du Pont invented Lycra, which was strong, stretchy and clung closely enough to show off the limb, just in time for the dawn of the miniskirt and soon the 1970s saw the introduc- tion of patterns and colours . Stockings fell well and truly out of fashion, with tights taking a 70 per cent share of the market .
Funnily enough tights had been around once before , in the Renaissance. But back then it was the men who wore them, not the women. They were made of silk or fi ne wool ( thus sported by the nobility, not the peasants), they were called hose and held up with garters. To this day some men still wear tights as part of their offi cial uniforms, not least the Serjeants- At- Arms at the Palace of Westminster, as do some performers and sportsmen, including American football players when it gets very cold.
But away from the stage and the football pitch, tights these days are largely a female preserve. They come in every colour under the sun, you can get footless tights, tights that control your shape, sheer tights, opaque tights, designer tights and bargain basement booty.
The very well dressed know how to use tights to cause a sensation: back in 1985 Princess Diana stole the show when she wore sheer black tights complete with back seams and a bow detail when watching the Melbourne Cup in Australia.
Tights came to assume different meanings: fi shnets were and are very sexy whereas many of us look back with shame on our fl irtation with American Tan.
MOSTwomen know the annoyance of plunging a foot into a brand new pair of tights and seeing a ladder run up the leg – although not for much longer according to Heist – but torn and damaged tights have a role to play too.
In the late 1970s they became a political statement when they were associated with punk, while they also became shorthand for a certain sort of sluttishness.
Whenever Madonna wanted to shock and couldn’t think of anything else she would appear in a pair of ripped tights. And of course they even became the stuff of criminal use: a whole generation of screen bank robbers ( and perhaps even the real thing) routinely stuffed their phizogs into a bit of see- through substance and made with the fi rearms.
And so what next? A new trend seems to be tights with toenails painted on to them to save the wearer the need for a pedicure while a new fi lm, Me Before You, based on the weepy novel, looks as if it might set a fashion in bumblebee striped tights. But tights – whatever their description – are here to stay. Go on, be daring and show a little leg. WEETABIX should be served for breakfast at every international trade conference organised by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ( Defra), according to Conservative MP Philip Hollobone.
It will probably not come as a complete surprise that the makers’ headquarters are in Mr Hollobone’s Kettering constituency. While not agreeing to his request, Environment Secretary Liz Truss was anxious to reveal: “I proudly display my own box of Elizabeth Truss Weetabix on my desk at Defra for all visitors to see when they arrive at my offi ce.” Is it just me, or would you too have concerns about someone who feels the need to put their name on their breakfast cereal? WHILE fi lm director Woody Allen is a predictable supporter of probable Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, he says of Donald Trump: “He’s very affable and I run into him at basketball games… and he is always very nice and pleasant.”
Trump once featured in a cameo role in Allen’s 1998 comedy Celebrity, which starred Kenneth Branagh and Leonardo DiCaprio. It is safe to assume that The Donald’s robust political views are unlikely to chime with the highly developed liberal sensibilities of either Ken or Leo.
SOCIALITE and author Petronella Wyatt, pictured, evidently has little time for the tycoon turned Republican party candidate either. Writing in the latest issue of The Spectator she recalls meeting Trump at a dinner in a Mayfair restaurant a few years ago.
“His hands were damp and his egg- like eyes looked me straight in the bosom,” she writes. But that wasn’t his real crime in her eyes. “The very rich seldom carry cash and I lent him £ 20 for a taxi,” continues Wyatt. “I have neither seen nor heard from him since. The FBI should be alerted and his opponents should grab him under the Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids political candidates from taking money from foreigners.” If you say so, Petsy.