The arrow has moved: How has the leggings trend changed and why are they an indispensable wardrobe item?

Tights can be loved or hated, but they can’t be taken lightly. Especially considering our climate. After all, no matter how much you want to, you won’t be able to wear a skirt or dress without tights from November to March. Or rather, it will work, but it will have very unpleasant consequences. Therefore, the trend of this wardrobe item from last year worked.

Heroines of street style and fashion influencers were happy to experiment and create looks with colorful, bright and fishnet tights. By the way, designers and stylists of major brands also responded, so this product occasionally appeared in campaigns and shows. For example, remember the Saint Laurent Fall 2024 fashion show, where the main emphasis was on nylon products.

Summarizing all of the above, we suggest that you once and for all accept the fact that tights are an indispensable thing in the wardrobe of every girl, and it is simply impossible to hide from them. Therefore, today the The Fashion Vibes fashion department decided to look back and track the development of the trend in nylon products. Moreover, the reason for this is quite appropriate – September 4 is considered the birthday of tights. Shall we start?

History of tights

If you think that tights were invented a long time ago, then you are very wrong. It happened a little over 60 years ago. Before that, girls had to deal with very uncomfortable socks. So the honorary title of the inventor was given to American fashion designer Allen Gantt. In 1959, he and his pregnant wife Ethel Boone Gant boarded a train to North Carolina. The woman was not at all happy with the prospect of traveling – after all, who would want to wear a multi-piece set of socks, a belt and a garter belt. And even more so to wear all this in a small train compartment. Therefore, after returning from the trip, Allen suggested that his wife sew socks into her underwear. Although nothing useful came of this idea, this is how the first prototype of tights appeared. Gant then took it to a clothing factory, reworked it and created completely new accessories.

Mini skirt effect

Then came the vibrant 1960s and (almost) all girls started wearing miniskirts. The British designer Mary Quant is responsible for this fashion revolution. On March 4, 1965, she introduced London, and then the entire world, to the very short skirts that would later define the era. The inspiration for this provocative invention was images of tap dancers whose uniforms were tights and short trapeze dresses.

You may ask, what does tights have to do with it? It’s simple: wearing a short skirt with stockings was considered extremely provocative, and tights, on the contrary, reduced the degree of honesty. By the way, this outfit became a symbol of liberation from narrow boundaries and expectations of how a girl should look.

The situation in the USSR

In the Soviet Union, tights also appeared in the 1960s. True, they were brought from Czechoslovakia and in very limited quantities. Therefore, it was not easy to find them; girls had to literally hunt for what they wanted. And if the tights suddenly tore, in no case were they thrown away, but carefully sewn up. By the way, there is an interesting story connected with the name itself. The word tights entered the Russian language as a result of a mistake. As we have already said, all nylon products were brought from the Czechoslovak Republic, and on each of them was written “Kalgoty Punchokhove”. This is where the “difficulties of translation” arose. Everyone decided that “kalgot” is tights, but in fact this word is translated from Czech as “pants”. But it took root, and no one began to change anything.

But back to the topic. Due to the shortage and lack of variety, girls in the capital resorted to very unusual experiments. They boiled tights with bleach, treated them with acid and soda, tinted them with drawing ink. Everything to get the desired shade. By the way, such non-trivial life hacks were even shared in magazines.

Grunge and ripped tights

Fashion dictates its own rules every decade. This applies to everything, right down to tights. If in the 1980s colorful models dominated, in the 1990s they were replaced by black and always torn models. And even better if they were mesh. Such a sharp change of mood was in everything: from music to beauty and fashion trends. In the era of grunge, “heroin chic” and crazy rockers, it was customary to dress in the spirit of Courtney Love and Kate Moss. So black nylon tights with arrows fit perfectly into the atmosphere of the decade.

Anti-trend

At some point, every trend becomes an anti-trend. In the 2000s, this happened with leggings. The glamour era, when people liked to undress more than dress, made its own adjustments to literally everything. Tops became more revealing, skirts got shorter, and jeans got tighter. In the 1960s, leggings were worn with skirts to make the image look less vulgar, but in the 2000s, this rule was crossed out.

Renaissance

Leggings have been a constant topic of discussion for a very long time. Some still refuse to wear them, while others complement any look with them, no matter what. A new page in the history of leggings began just a few years ago. It was then that monogrammed options began to appear in the collections of luxury brands. More than once you have seen photos of influencers wearing Chanel, Saint Laurent, Prada or Gucci leggings on social networks.

After a while, regular openwork models also went viral. Fashionistas wore them (and, by the way, still wear them) with miniskirts and oversized jackets, silhouette dresses and, of course, with pointed-toe slingbacks or heels.

Tights have become even more popular in the past year. First, thanks to the Miu Miu show and the efforts of fashion influencers, a provocative trend of wearing tights has emerged. Bold? There’s nothing to argue about. However, we’ve seen plenty of famous it-girls replicating the dangerous styling technique. We’re talking about Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner, Emma Corrin, Sasha Novikova and Evgenia Pavlin.

Then there was a boom in colored tights. Bloggers and influencers especially loved the bright red color options (recall that this is the main color of 2023). We were asked to style them with miniskirts and micro shorts, dresses and Bermuda shorts. In this case, tights were the main accent of the image and attracted all the attention. No wonder everyone uses this trick so much.

The next stage in the biography of tights was the popularization of flesh-colored options. Yes, yes, they are desperately trying to return to the fashion arena. And it seems that no one can stop them. First, Kanye West and his wife Bianca Censori voted for the return with both hands. Secondly, she appeared in public more than once this year in a bold nylon overall look. Sometimes you even get the feeling that she is sponsored by the manufacturer of tights, because she wears nothing but tights. This trend was adopted to some extent by representatives of the fashion community. True, in a slightly different format. The idea arose to put flowers, hair strands or stickers under the tights.

The design studio did not stand aside either. Now more and more creative directors rely on tights: colorful, bright, perforated, torn and, of course, nude. Speaking of the latter, we cannot help but recall the Saint Laurent fall-winter 2024 show, which we mentioned at the very beginning of the material. Despite seasonality, almost all models appeared on the catwalk in completely transparent looks. And nylon became the “headline” of the entire collection – models appeared at the show in translucent tights in beige, chocolate and gray tones.

Moreover, hats were also made from them. It is not surprising that stylists immediately began to use this technique. And something tells us that very soon nude tights will make a long-awaited return. Therefore, we recommend that you re-read our material on how to choose the right tights for your outfit and pull out all the models lying around from the back drawers of your wardrobe. They will definitely come in handy for you.