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April showers be damned — Ashley Knowlton is going to hit the city streets in bare legs. After a brutally long winter, the bubbly blonde retired her thick black stockings to the back of her closet on Friday, and despite the ongoing chilly, rainy, is-it-spring-or-isn’t-it? weather, she’s not going back.
“I’m forcing the pale, bare leg,” says the 28-year-old, fashion director at a celebrity lifestyle magazine. “Tights just don’t go with my spring outfit, and I just don’t care anymore.”
Birds chirping, green grass, crocuses in bloom; nature has many ways of indicating that spring has arrived. But New York women have their own way of signaling the season of renewal — shedding their thick 100-denier hose.
Unless you wear pants all the time, tights are a staple of NYC cold-weather dressing. And at first, wearing them seems stylish — who doesn’t love a tweed pencil skirt and comfy black opaques? But after donning the hosiery day and night from November to April, fatigue and — dare we say it? — a certain level of rage sets in.
“I hate wearing tights,” says celebrity style expert Jacqui Stafford. “The nanosecond I see sunshine and can get away without them, I stop wearing them. Tights, for most fashion people, spell restriction. You can’t wear flirty skirts and fabulous sling-backs with them.”
Indeed, some women have decided the time has come to toss their tights, regardless of what Al Roker might be predicting.
“Aren’t women burning their tights these days?” asks 30-year-old communications consultant Ashley Wick, who lives in the West Village. “I’m certainly ready to put away my Wolfords.”
But for those bold enough to bid adieu to their stockings, cold reality can set in.
“The weather’s been horrible. People are desperate now,” Stafford says of the current climate, which alternates daily between bone-chilling and gray to partly sunny. “We have this weird transition because we don’t know what to wear.”
East Village graphic designer Stacey Wu recently sported a lingerie-inspired frock over black tights — but she wasn’t happy about it.
“I want to put them away already, especially when you see spring clothes in the window but you can’t wear them,” says Wu, 29. “You just can’t wear them with the spring colors.”
So what to do in these few transitional weeks before warm weather begins (hopefully) in earnest?
Jeannie Mai, the host of Style Network’s “How Do I Look?” suggests covering up other body parts to pull off a bare leg with comfort.
“You can make it practical to bare some skin,” says Mai. “If I’m going without tights in this weather, the rest of me has to be bundled up.”
She suggests that women layer up in a chunky knit sweater, a mini and thick socks under boots. She also suggests trying to get some mileage out of the season’s crop of colorful tights.
“I don’t go for the plain black tight. I’ll pull on a lavender pair under taupe, or lace tights. It finishes the entire look and gets me excited to wear them.” (Alternatively, try a few of the transitional tights featured on this page.) Both Mai and Stafford agree that prepping your legs with lotions and self-tanner will increase your confidence, even through the shivers and goose bumps.
“You never want to have a pasty calf,” says Stafford. “And the best ones are the gradual self-tanners, so you don’t go from being white one day to orange the next.”
Mai loves Nars Body Glow ($59.99; narscosmetics.com) for its adjustable hues.
“It’s a lotion that covers your skin with a super-soft tan finish. If you put on one layer, you’ll get a perfectly sun-kissed look, but you can deepen the color with more applications,” Mai adds.
For some, scrapping your tights may mean giving up on short skirts as well.
“If you don’t have great legs, you can’t get away with the short mini and no tights,” Stafford advises. “Drop the hemline. You have to dress for your body shape.”