Celebrity effect pulls up tights sales

It appears that there is money in sheer hoisery - at least in the UK.

The facts and figures are:

• Wolford sales were up 19.5% last year
• Sales of Marks and Spencer suntan tights up 50%
• Marks and Spencer nude tights sales were up 85%

This is usually put down to the celebrity factor:

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

• The fashion blogosphere has been abuzz with the tights choices of the Middleton sisters - as has already been noted on this blog and will be doubtless analysed again.
• Bayonce has been wearing sheer tights on stage
• French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been showing that nude tights can have Gallic sheik
• Even Sarah Jessica Parker - of Sex in the City Fame - has been seen in leg wear that is a bit more sheer.

Beyonce

 Now while the rise in tan tights sales coincided with the Middleton factor,  celebs may not have been the only cause (or indeed the cause) driving the rise in sheer pantyhose sales in the UK.  As they say correlation need not mean causation.  I noticed a rise in tights (particularly with shorts) amongst girls walking to sixth form college in Brighton long before the celeb trend.  Perhaps tights have just come to the top of the ever turning wheel of fashion again.

I also think it is sad that the emphasis is just on nude (and maybe tan) tights.  Black can look even more sexy.

The trend does not, however, appear to have reached the US yet.  Pantyhose sales in dollar terms were only up 1.7%.  But there are signs that the tide is turning even in the US:

• Sales of opaque tights in the US jumped by 27%
• 65% of people who replied to Huffington post survey said they would wear sheer tights
• 79% of people answering a USmagazine.com survey said they thought sheer stockings were sexy.

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sadly as one US commentator notes "young women here are still cool to basic nude or sheer black stockings".  Something that is not helped by the media.  I recently watched a episode of the BBC sci-fi show "Torchwood" set in the US and clearly aimed at the US market, only to find all the foxy CIA operatives combined bare legs with their funky platform heels.

But the US industry is producing "playful patterned and colored sheer pantyhose, tights and over-the-knee socks for the autumn. There are pale floral patterns, soft colour mixes, lace patterns, stripes, cutouts and embroidered fishnets."  So perhaps the return of sheer pantyhose to the US is only a matter of time.