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.