Black Still Basic in Hosiery, but Glitz Is In

Gold is in, glitz is it , but black is the perennial bestseller in holiday leg wear, say hosiery department sales staffs.

Shoppers looking for hosiery to wear with this season’s opulent evening clothes will find plenty of options--iridescent, jewel tone, elegant or whimsical patterns--at prices ranging from $5 to $20.

What isn’t an option is basic beige. Women accustomed to stopping by a mini-market, grabbing a package of beige panty hose and wriggling into them in the car on the way to a party will find themselves out of step with this year’s fashions.

Even the favorite sheer black stockings have gone beyond basic. They are seamed, jeweled, clocked, flocked and bow-tied. They sparkle with jet beads, gold foil, discreet--or indiscreet--rhinestone accents.

“Embellishment” is essential, according to Antoinette Corley, who is promotions manager/fashion production for the Broadway department stores. Beaded gowns with a 1920s flavor look best with seamed or clocked stocking styles, she noted. Back seams and satin bows at the ankle suit the tuxedo look for women. And colored hose complete the all-in-one effect with gowns of red, green or royal blue.

With black-and-gold party dresses, a gold foil detail on one leg of sheer black hose helps pull the look together. Black embroidery and jet beads on black stockings provide the finishing touch for a black velvet and red satin gown.

Sequined or jewel-encrusted gowns also require something special--an iridescent gleam, at the very least--in coordinated stockings. And with this year’s very big little black dress, “the detail often is in the hose, not the gown,” she said.

Stockings are no longer an afterthought, Corley said, but an important accessory. They are considered in the purchase of a dress and in wardrobe planning by women who patronize the Broadway store at South Coast Plaza.

“The customers know what they want. They buy basic black, for example, and accessorize with stockings and earrings. They want to wear (a dress) for more than one party, rhinestones at the ankle for evening and sheer black to church,” she said.

At Frederick’s of Hollywood in Westminster Mall, customers bring in evening clothes, even wedding dresses, to match hosiery, said store manager Susan Whetstone-Laws.

“I have girls drag in 20-pound dresses to make sure they get the right stockings,” she said.

While they’re not always sure of their taste--”They bring in dresses and ask us to select stockings,” Whetstone-Laws said--her customers are buying gold in a big way this year.

The store’s newest style is black stretch-knit panty hose embossed with a gold ivy-and-rose pattern. “They look great with gold lame,” she said.

For evening, party-goers like gold and silver foil stockings with an embossed pattern of champagne glasses. “I wore these stockings in silver with a simple black velvet dress with a silver brooch at the center of the sweetheart neckline,” Whetstone-Laws said.

Holiday stockings can be whimsical too.

Just for fun, women are buying white panty hose dotted with candy canes and holly berries or accented with peppermint-stripe seams, red bows and jingle bells at the ankles. There is also a pair of black stockings decorated on one ankle with a red Santa sporting a tiny pearl at the tip of his hat.

Male customers, who make up 40% of Frederick’s hosiery customers, buy red or green fishnet stockings for the holidays. “For some reason, men like fishnet,” Whetstone-Laws said.

Men also like “fancy things” in hosiery, she said, and often purchase stockings to complete an outfit. “They’ll buy a leather dress or skirt at another store in the mall and want stockings to go with it,” she said.

Nordstrom’s hosiery department also gets men customers, said Brenda Danielson, hosiery buyer for the South Coast Plaza store. But they often feel out of place in this women’s department.

“Men are more comfortable buying sox,” she said.

“Hosiery is a hard thing to buy,” Danielson said. Women make an effort to match or coordinate their dresses and stockings for the one-color look that’s current, she pointed out. (It’s also possible to achieve that all-in-one look for your mink coat, with mink pompons at the heels of your stockings.)

Many women prefer rhinestone-accented or sparkle hose for evening, Danielson said, but younger, “more funky” customers like Capri tights--footless opaque stockings with lace or rhinestones at the bottom edge. In black, white, ivory or earth tones, they are paired with chiffon skirts for evening.

Orange County stocking sellers agreed, however, that the best-selling hosiery for holiday wear and all year long is, hands down, black ultra-sheer.