::Shebytches::

Last week I was having issues with writer's block and couldn't articulate why it bothered me so much that my friends wore sandalfoot pantyhose with sandals to a wedding. It was more than than the fashion faux pas that bothered me; it was that I equated this particular footwear combo with being old. My mom used to wear sandals with pantyhose in the eighties, and she was old (to me, because I was 6). But as much as I tried to coherently explain why I disliked pantyhose and sandals, I couldn't because my brain had decided to go on strike.

Fortunately, though, I've had a nasty case of insomnia lately and have had ample time to think deeply about pantyhose. So for your enjoyment and edification, here's an explanation for my distaste for sandals worn with pantyhose.

People say that you keep dressing the way you did when you were young and looked your best. For example, everyone knows a 40-year-old guy who still insists on wearing the Motorhead T-Shirt he got at their concert when he was 17 with his favourite studded belt. Similarly, I insist on wearing men-style, Doc-Marten-esque shoes even though I'm 30 and looking for a job in the financial sector. Well, when I was growing up, the grown-up women at weddings had been at their peak of stylishness in 1969 or 1972 or something like that, and back then, if you were the daughter of Italian immigrants, you wore pantyhose no matter what. You did not wear long hippie skirts with bare legs. You did not dance braless in the park. Only corrupt girls did that. You were a nice girl, so you wore nice skirts (if you were daring, you might wear a mini-skirt) and nylons. You had to wear nylons. Only prostitutes went with their legs uncovered!

One of my Italian friends told me about how her grandma knew that her mom (my friend's mom) was having sex with her boyfriend (later to be my friend's dad). Apparently she knew there was sex happening because my friend's mom would come home late, bare-legged, with her pantyhose balled-up in her purse. I can almost picture the look of disapproval coming from my friend's grandma: not only was her daughter having sex, but she had to advertise it to the whole neighbourhood by running around without pantyhose! The shame!

Now, fast-forward to the early eighties, at the tail-end of the disco era, when stappy sandals were all the rage. These women who were totally shamed into always wearing nylons were faced with the prospect of sexy sandals. What were they to do? Well, they couldn't leave the house with their legs uncovered, but the reinforced-toe nylons would look damn ugly. Solution: sandalfoot nylons without the reinforced toe. Problem: makes toes look webbed and generally fugly. But these women couldn't go out without their legs covered because that's what they were brought up with. And, let's face it, they looked good back then in their mini-skirts and nylons (and fully covered toes).

So in my mind I associate the wearing of sandalfoot nylons with sandals with women who are having trouble adapting to the world around them. Sad, isn't it? Especially since I suspect that it may have been totally cool to wear nylons and sandals in the seventies and eighties (I'll have to check Debbie Harry's feet next time they show archival video of her on TV).

But it gets worse. I am becoming these backward women. I have been programmed to think that it's cheap to go bare-legged to weddings. It's true. I blame the mid-to-late eighties and the grunge era for this. In the mid-eighties I was caught in the trendiness of pink, lace stockings and sheer, black nylons with prints up the sides. During grunge, I learned to love opaque leggings worn under short, flowery skirts and dresses. (I actually pray every season that that look comes back, because I too am trapped in the past.) So now not only am I crtitical of women who wear nylons with sandals to weddings, but I'm also critical of women who go bare-legged to weddings.

And that is why I always wear closed-toe shoes and pantyhose.