Let’s Talk About the Royal Family, Legs and Stockings

When you think about the Royal Family in the UK, legs and stockings may not be the first thing that springs to mind! Up until now the focus has been on the length of the Queen’s reign and who is going to take over from her, and the birth of another baby for Prince William and his wife Kate – but now there is a new Royal on the scene and she is sending us wild with her fashion hits (and misses).

Meghan Markle married Prince Harry on the 19^th May this year (2018) and officially became our newest style icon – which is quite hard to do in the confines of the Royal Family. She was super stylish before she became the Duchess of Sussex, but now she has to abide by the rules of being Royal. Of course, we don’t know them all, but the ones we do know include bowing and curtseying are a requirement, you can’t turn your bag on the queen, garlic is not allowed in the palace and apparently the Queen uses her bag to send special signals (who knew?!)

Not so much is known about the fashion rules, however, apart from one. Apparently, women in the Royal family have to wear tights on all public occasions. And this is where Meghan got a little unstuck. Back in May, Meghan attended the Buckingham Palace garden party – her first event as a married Royal and all eyes were on her legs, but for all the wrong reasons.

Firstly, up until then, Meghan had gone bare-legged, showing off her beautiful legs to the world. Now, we can forgive her on this occasion for wearing tights – after all, it is supposedly a Royal rule, but what we can’t forgive her for is the colour of those tights. Yes, they were flesh-coloured, but they were not the colour of Meghan’s flesh – they were way too pale for that! Perhaps she had forgotten the tights rule and borrowed them from Kate at the last minute? Who knows.

Unfortunately, Meghan is not the only Royal to have suffered from the bad tight syndrome. Where are the 30 denier hold ups when you need them? Her late mother-in-law Lady Diana Spencer was also caught wearing some shiny beige monstrosities for her famous photo call in front of the Taj Mahal back in 1992 – maybe that is who Meghan was channeling on that fateful day.

The rest of the young Royals aren’t much better either, Beatrice, Eugenie, and Kate herself are often seen wearing skin coloured tights. So, if you are going to join in with this trend, how do you make sure you get the right colour?

How to choose the right colour tights?

As we have seen from Meghan’s misstep, it can be really hard to get the right colour stockings or tights for your skin tone so you should always choose them with care. Nude is a good option but just because the packet says ‘nude’ it doesn’t mean that it will automatically match your skin tone. If you have very pale legs, for example, you may want to try something that is labelled fair instead.

If you are having trouble finding a sheer tight that matches your skin colour, then why not try matching your tights or stockings to the colour of the hemline of your dress or skirt instead. So black tights with a black dress, and navy tights for a navy dress and so on. Or, you could really bring attention to your legs by wearing a contrasting colour like red or cobalt blue.

The other thing you could try is matching your tights to your shoes so again if you are wearing black shoes you could choose black stockings to go with them. However, if your shoes are darker than the dress or skirt you are wearing you could try wearing sheer tights instead. For open-toe shoes, you need to purchase sheer toed stockings or skip stockings altogether if you can bear it.

If you want to make your legs appear longer and slimmer, then you should opt for richer, darker colours such as burgundy, navy and hunter green – all of which are on trend for this autumn. Opaque tights and stockings also help to make your legs look longer as well.

At FashionLegs we have a wide range of tights and stockings available to you – including open toe hold ups –  in a variety of colours to solve all of your hosiery issues. If you require any help or information then please contact our friendly customer service team on 01928 508 888 between 9 am and 5.30 pm from Monday to Friday, or drop us an email to [email protected]