The white hose scandal: Why do Washington women insist on wearing these stockings?

August 30, 2024

This story was originally published May 23, 1997.

Horror has many faces. This one has legs.

Everywhere in Washington, there are women wearing sheer, ghostly white pantyhose.

Chalk-white gams, young and old, emerge from Metro cars, taxis and buses. The hosiery is like a fungus on the capital landscape.

Fans of these pale stockings are neither nurses in uniform nor brides in full ceremonial costume. They are not women who, understanding the elongating effects of monochromatic attire, choose white hose because their skirts and their shoes also happen to be white, beige or butter yellow.

No, we are talking about women who pair white pantyhose with black business suits, navy coat dresses, charcoal skirts. These women are a study in high contrast, an illustration from the dowdy handbook. They are conscientiously anti-fashion.

Defenders might harumph and assert that their hosiery is more accurately described as ivory or bone. Some might, with a straight face, explain that the shade they’re wearing is called ice. We don’t care. Pasty hosiery — by any euphemism — against a dark hemline in the glare of sunlight is still ghastly.

The number crunchers at Hanes Hosiery report that their top three best-selling colors in the Washington area are “barely black,” “jet” and “pearl.” Pure white comes in at No. 11. Could it be “pearl” that so offends? Under the bright light, against a black or blue shoe, is an otherwise feminine, fresh color transformed into something garish?

Even winter fails to provide a reprieve from the assault. Die-hard white hosers refuse to give it a rest in the wake of filthy slush and sleet. Then, in the springtime, their numbers grow. Women who all winter stick with sophisticated shades such as ebony, midnight, coal and espresso suddenly join the ranks of those who revel in unnaturally pallid legs. By May, all is lost. On every street corner are women in white pantyhose, dark business attire and pumps cut so boldly low as to reveal toe cleavage.

A Talbots spokeswoman reminds us that there is a fashion trend toward light-colored hosiery. We must emphasize that we are not talking about delicate, open-weave, pale yellow tights worn with breezy summer dresses. We are not referring to a bold fashion statement in which traditional aesthetic sensibilities are deliberately, playfully jarred. We are, to be perfectly clear, speaking of navy dresses and white hose, black power suits and white hose.

The Talbots spokeswoman points out that the dark-light combination echoes the pattern of spectator pumps, which are one of fashion’s harbingers of summer. Could it be that women are taking a cue from a pair of shoes in their search for an easy way to lighten up a winter ensemble? Maybe.

But it’s not working. The white stockings are ugly. Still, we hesitate to suggest you take them off. Because that means you’ll turn to completely illogical nude hosiery. We know you won’t go bare-legged.

Washington women have an undying devotion to hosiery. Even in the steamiest days of summer, women here refuse to shed their nylons. The microfibers apparently form a protective barrier between woman and the world. With them she is confident, well-dressed, purposeful. Without them, she falls apart — or so one would assume based on the gasps normally associated with the idea of workday attire worn without stockings.

Bare legs, by God, ought to be perfectly appropriate for work in warm months. Hosiery-obsessed bosses should relax their rigid ways.

In an area where women abide by the unwritten rules of fashion as if they were commandments chiseled in stone, it’s surprising that they choose to ignore the traditional rules of thumb for selecting hosiery: Pantyhose should be the same color or darker than one’s hemline. Shoes should be the same color or darker than one’s hosiery.

We respect those who carve out their own fashion paths, ignoring the dictates of the sheep around them. We believe that personal style can be discovered only through trial and error. We wholeheartedly applaud those who wear what they like, fashion be damned.

But where white hose is concerned — please, be merciful.

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