Transitioning to Fall: Tights are In

A loyal reader and old friend asked me to write about the ins and outs of moving to fall fashion, and specifically, wearing tights. A how to, if you will. Now, many people have their own self-imposed rules about tights. Some say you have to match your shoes to your tights. Some say you have to match your dress to your tights. Some say you have to match your shoes to your dress to your hair, god, who knows? I’m not a strict. I wear tights with damn near everything.

So here are my “rules” for wearing tights:

• When deciding whether or not tights “match” your outfit, ask yourself this. If your dress was a top and your tights were pants, would you wear them together? If the answer is yes, wear the tights. This even works in reverse. Think of how you’d normally wear colors together and go for it.
• Repeat after me – Tights are not pants. Leggings are not pants. Tights are not pants. Leggings are not pants. Do not treat them as such. If you wouldn’t wear a skirt or dress to the office bare legged, then you still shouldn’t wear it with tights.Tights are not a pant substitute, they are simply a bare-leg substitute. So make sure your dress covers all your lady bits.
• Wear the right tights. Just like everything else in your closet, your tights need to fit. There’s nothing worse than wear a dress that looks great on you and having a rolling down pair of tights underneath it to make you look like roly poly. My favorite tights are Spanx tights, in tons of colors. They’re amazing! (Photo below, link to buy here).

• My friend who requested this post asked specifically about patterns. Can you wear them to the office? I say go for it, BUT, in my opinion, they need to be very close to opaque patterns. For instance, in the photo below, I would personally wear anything except the tights in the middle of the top row. To me, they show too much skin and draw too much attention to the skin on the leg. Not office appropriate, for me.

• Now for the hardest question – can you wear tights with anything? I would contend yes, as long as you’re accessorized properly. Obviously a pink flowery dress with tights isn’t winterizing. But if you add some cognac boots and a tweed jacket and brown tights, you’re in business for fall.