Out on a limb

Last Year, lacey tights were fashionable and my renowned colleague Annie and I sat and talked about what we thought of them - yuk. But we were wrong. It wasn't a nasty fad lasting only a season and this year it gets worse. There's all sorts of fancy stuff going on in the tights department and Dolce e Gabbana's version (at a wallet-exploding pounds 370) have already sold out. The best I can do is reprint Annie's answer to a man asking where he could buy fancy tights for his girlfriend, long before the trend kicked off, and plead for sanity:

"My dear boy. If I achieve one thing through this column it will be the eradication of swirly lace tights. They are foul things that should be foisted upon only the most unfortunate of women, perhaps as a punishment for adultery, in countries that still punish for such things. If you love your girlfriend, nay, boy, even if you like her, do not, I beg you, buy her novelty tights. Words like frivolous, playful and frilly may come to your mind, but words such as naff, passe and Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink are the only words that come to mine when I think of such hosiery."

annie, May 1996