We have had a longstanding obsession with tights of all kinds here on Coutorture. We began playing with colored tights back in February with Look From London. Then our British community members Catwalk Queen, Kingdom of Style and Susie Bubble helped us reconnect with our love of shimmer pantyhose even in the dead heat of summer. So its no surprise to us that Women's Wear Daily is featuring a printed legwear story for Spring 2009. The photo editorial by Pasha Antonov made us giggle with its silly photoshopped backgrounds but we dig that its combining several aesthetics that have been speaking to us for sometime right down to the Mandy Coon hair.

The pantyhose debate continues to rage in small town America and corporate human resources departments. But frankly the right to bare legs (or arms, or even sometimes, shudder, midriffs) hasn't really been a concern for fashion women. So when we started to weirdly crave shimmer nylons in the dead of summer we knew something was up. Our first inkling came as we read Tom Wolfe's eulogy of Clay Falker in the great man's own New York Magazine. Discussing a style piece on Madison Avenue art girls we found ourselves inspired.

They became known as the “art birds.” As late as 1989 Japanese art collectors liked to have these pretty little American girls by their sides in the front rows for the “important” auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. They loved the pretty things’ lithe young legs with their epidermi of sheerest ravage-me nylon shimmering up to the most tumescent swells of their thighs as they crossed and then re-crossed and then re-re-crossed and then re-re-re-crossed them shimmer shimmer shimmer shimmer beneath the downlighters.

Now the fact that we found ourselves inspired by sheer nylons in midsummer by a man who habitually wears suits, albeit white ones, in even the warmest weather seemed fitting. But then today network partner Catwalk Queen admitted that she was a hosiery hoarder. She begins in the context of pre-fall trends and uses fellow community members Kingdom of Style and Susie Bubble as evidence. But its when she admits to loving "the new breed of truly barely-there nudes" we knew we were not alone. We have a few plans in mind for showcasing just how sexy the "shimmer, shimmer, cross re-cross" can be even in the middle of a heatwave.

Inside jokes are funny things as it is almost impossible to reconstruct the genesis of a witticism particular to a clique. Nevertheless we feel a burning desire to share with you a strange connection we have made in our heads here at Coutorture about the danger of going without pants. Please bear with us while we explain. Your Editor in Chief and Creative Director have a unique take on Men Without Hat's Safety Dance. For reasons unknown to to them, in some fit of fashionista perversity they have managed to transpose dance for pants in several instances of the lyrics. Thus

I say, we can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance
Well they're no friends of mine

Has become

'Cause your friends don't pants and if they don't pants
Well they're no friends of mine

And no we aren't sure how we arrived at this conclusion either but many choruses of "we can pants" have been sung. But clearly if friends don't pants well then they're no friends of mine! Or at least that is what we imagine the Tights Aren't Pants Manifesto we discovered via community member Fashionation might have to say on the issue.

And yet as good Williamsburg residents we just aren't sure if, despite our revised lyrics, people without pants are in fact no friends at all. It would seem dancing about in fields in crazy tights or leggings might very well be the sort of liberating "we can dance" experience that was made for fashion fans crazy enough to style in the weirdest of leggings. Even if they use them as pants.