Ladder

I've never worn tights. Well, I say that, when I was 5 my mum concocted what was possibly the most bizarre fancy dress outfit ever to create two "Jubilee Trumpeters", consisting of me and my brother wearing souvenir golden jubilee carrier bags and a pair of white tights (the trumpets were adapted cardboard tinfoil rolls). And I have a vague recollection of there being a pair of yellow tights in the dressing up box in my bedroom when I was little, which would almost certainly have been used to create some sort of superhero get-up at one point. But, APART FROM THAT, I have never worn tights.

They have always struck me as a curiously impractical garment. Any clothing item which breaks the very first time you wear it, and provokes more of a "oh well, that was bad luck" rather than a scream of "fucking bastards, I'm taking these back" might as well be replaced with tissue paper and roll of Sellotape. Or perhaps a form of pasta.

Life, however, throws plenty of tights substitutes at the unwary male. Or at least this unwary male (and there must be few more unwary than I). Most durable to date are my cycling leggings. Well, actually, they're not cycling leggings at all, they're cheap-as-chips running leggings from purveyors of bargain shite Sports Direct. But I wear them when cycling, and thus far they have proved impressively durable, despite my tendency to forget to unzip the ankle looseners when I take them off: I end up hopping around with stretchy leggings attached to my foot as I try to pull them off, like a pixie attached to a piece of chewing gum.

(It's amazing how bothered people can be about how others dress - read this thread as a prime example of hot-under-the-collar-fuckwittery)

Most fragile seems to be the ultimate in male tights-substitute, the skinny jean. Despite clearly being a young persons trouser (and therefore out of bounds to angora wearing oldies)  I can't resist building my entire wardrobe around the Skinny.  Perhaps it's a reaction to spending most of my twenties wearing baggy clothes to hide how skinny I (thought that I) was. Perhaps I secretly just want to wander around in tights for some reason*. Perhaps I'm having a mid-life crisis and can't afford a sports car, a jet-ski or a giant, ceramic replica of Jeremy Clarkson.

But Skinnies, it turns out, are a bit on the tissue-paper-and-pasta side. They don't ladder, as such, but I've never worn through any leg wear as quickly as a work through my tiny jeans. It might be that, despite being determinedly on the slim side, I'm just not quite the right shape for them. They are clearly not - for instance - designed for the frequent cyclist. Not only does wearing them while actually cycling lead to worn-through holes in very embarrassing places (stemming from friction of taut denim against saddle) but if you've got thighs and a bum you're going to have to be careful when bending. There's really not a lot of give. Bending at the knees might look after your back when heavy lifting; it doesn't do much for your trousers, and the subsequent journey home on the tube can be awkward.

Maybe I should look into tights after all. And maybe a carrier bag.

S.

*I'm thinking more from the actory side of things than being a transvestite, but you can draw your own conclusions.