I too, now that I am a “woman of a certain age”, bemoan the demise of pantyhose. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a skirt and heels without hosiery, especially in the office. Don’t even get me started on the so-called “dressy flip-flop”!

Sorry, you folks are on your own on lamenting pantyhose as far as I am concerned. I have no idea where you get the idea that they absorb anything because unless we are talking tights, pantyhose are made out of nonabsorbtive material and made you even warmer. Pantyhose deserved to die, period. To some degree, fashion is about tradition, I’m with you, and standards, but it’s also a marketplace like just about any other part of material life. And I repeat pantyhose deserved to die. Baking hot in summer, too cold for winter wear. Pantyhose manufacturers seemed to assumed four inches of clearance between the crotch and the waist, so for long-waisted women like me, they were brutally uncomfortable up top and rolled down. If I got them long enough up top, they were too long in the leg and wrinkled around my ankles. I could have gone with stockings, I suppose, but they are no better on multiple fronts. They ran if you looked at them funny, which meant embarrassing runs and constantly spending on them because you couldn’t expect them to last more than three wears, especially given the long-waist problem.

Beyond that, I don’t think they add anything to a look. Tights do. Pantyhose just make you look like you are wearing pantyhose.

I also am not sure the standards have relaxed. I think now the achievement of great-looking legs is expected to come with your body–through volumes of exercise. Certainly all the starlet wannabes I see running around southern California have great legs, along with some women of certain age who still have great legs. We’ve shifted the expectation about achieving beautiful legs from things like pantyhose to having a great body in general.

Since I have neither the banging body nor any desire to shave my legs, I wear pants.

You can look good in sandals and bare legs with tanned legs, reasonably good skin, frequent shaving, callous removal, toenail polish with frequest touch-ups, and blister care as needed. Or you can put on close-toed, close-heeled shoes and stockings and have done with it.

The current fashion of low-slung jeans and skin-tight camisoles even in 100-degree weather makes the cry of “pantyhose are so uncomfortable!” a bit dubious.

Ah, the contempt for women of porcelain complexions! We’re expected to lament our ‘pasty’ skins. I don’t tan – can’t tan – and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. At 27 years of age (and two skin cancer removals) I was done with trying.
So I don’t cover my pale legs.

There are many things that have fallen out of fashion, but you will never get me to miss pantyhose. Uncomfortable to the point of punishing, especially in Southern climes.

Why can’t we consider hose to be optional? You like them? Wear them! You don’t? Don’t! Problem solved!

Being a personage of the female persuasion, a member of a learned profession, and of an age that is past adolescence and not-knowing-better, I am firmly IN the pantyhose camp for a variety of reasons both personal and more general.

First, I have quite non-robust skin on my feet and blister very easily. Wearing regular shoes/heels without stockings guarantees that I will have blisters and open wounds. Stockings save my skin, literally.

Second, I have really, really good legs, but they are pale, and I am far from a sun-worshiper. All the damage from decades’ past tanning teaches a lesson that cannot be eradicated. So, the legs don’t get tanned intentionally. Leg makeup beyond moisturizer is, to my mind, silly unless there is a genuine blemish to be concealed. Moreover, it is the rare woman past the collagen-filled bliss of teenagery that has really firm and uniform skin tone and color from toes to the tops of her thighs. Thus, pantyhose provide necessary color and a uniform appearance to my stems.

Third, while I have a pretty good figure, I appreciate, and have for years, the trimming/slimming effect of my control-top pantyhose. I don’t need Spanx; Hanes Control Top works just fine.

Fourth, stockings help to keep the legs warm in the cool and cold seasons and in the air-conditioned environs that can produce a crop of goose-pimples.

Finally, I am a member of a conservative profession that has long been less than welcoming to women. I entered it decades ago when a female would be almost automatically assumed to be support personel rather than the professional. Dressing to and for the job, including the suits, the stockings and the professional footwear, was and still is the way to encourage clients and counterparts to take and treat one as a peer. That’s just the way of it, and I don’t mind it as I’ve come to accept it.

Thus, I’m in the pantyhose camp to keep my feet from injury, to look polished and professional. Indeed, I’ll be on a Hanes run this Saturday.

Wildflower has it right. Pantyhose are only dead to those who want them to be. Personally, I dislike the way they feel, and when it’s warm I’ll happily wear sandals with a “tea-length” skirt or capris to work without worrying about a few inches of skin. However, in the colder months, out come the Hanes or the tights, depending on the outfit. I love mixing up pants on some days with skirts and dresses on other days, but I work in a profession like NDC’s where a professional look matters and bare legs under an office-y outfit would be distracting in all the wrong ways. At least, MY bare legs would be — they are well-shaped, but the spider veins and uneven skin tone that come with maturity don’t need to be advertised.

Tanning is a poor idea as a pantyhose substitute. The smooth-skinned young ladies who use that approach (as I once did) will inevitably find themselves needing to cover up their prematurely-aged skin in a few years and wishing they’d protected it better.