the worst thing that could have happened, has: my favourite ever black tights have been discontinued, and i'm down to my final pair of still-in-the-packet ones. i made this discovery last week, and panicked. i panicked, right, because black tights are my life! until this summer when i invested in (too many) culottes, i only wore dresses, and in winter, i only wore dresses and black tights. seven days, seven pairs of black tights, and i had about four that weren't holey as hell. so yeah, panic is what i did.
various tights c/o uk tights
i took to twitter, asking for recommendations. a lot of people said m&s. a lot of people said calzedonia. a lot of people said they were in the same boat and they wanted to see the responses i got. but there was one account that replied, that seemed to have the answer: uk tights. i'll be honest: i'd never heard of them before, but one scour on their product pages and it seemed like this was the exact help i needed! only problem now was, where to start? i'm a 100 denier gal usually, but a lot of the recommendations i was getting was that 60 and 80 denier were what i wanted. 60 denier? what a joke! that sounded like it wouldn't be warm enough at all, but with uk tights in my corner, i decided to give them a try.. all of them, i mean.
i started tweeting my review of each of the styles i chose with the hashtag #ericateststights, but i soon realised that there's a whole sub-genre of weirdos on the internet who are obsessed with tights, and it wasn't the company i really wanted to keep. so, i stopped doing that, but that doesn't mean i've stopped trying my stash on for size! so far, my faves of the lot are the pretty polly 3d lycra tights, in both 60 - yes 60 - and 80 denier, but.. they're still not as good as my favourites that have been discontinued. the denier of both is plenty warm and the colour is nice and opaque on the leg (no discolouration), but.. they don't stay up as well as i'm used to, nor do they come up as high as i like.
i tuck my tights into my bra, ok? it keeps them up, it keeps my body warm, and, it flatters the belly a bit more than normal. i've done it as long as i've been wearing tights (and bras), and my favourite tights are 100 denier and thick and long and i can tuck them in without having to go up a size to get that extra length, and.. well, i just can't seem to do that in these pretty polly ones. the waist band isn't as thick as i'd like, and maybe an inch too short for me to be able to comfortably tuck into my bra without it slipping. so, i'm going to keep trying. i have some 100 denier 100% cotton ones to try next, though they're more like socks than tights, so i'm not sure they're going to work.
for now though, i know pretty polly make some pretty decent tights, that aren't too expensive, that just about do the trick, that keep me warm, and are pretty good value for money, so that will keep me going until i manage to track down the warehouse that makes and distributes the tights i just can't seem to move on from. though, if you have any recommendations, i'd love to hear them!
