by Olivia Elsom

Created on: November 13, 2007

Should you wear stockings with open-toe shoes? The short answer to this question really should be no! Open-toe shoes are designed to show off an attractive, well-manicured set of toes. It's a shame to have them hidden beneath a nylon gauze. However, I am talking about an ideal here. I appreciate that some women don't like going bare-legged for various reasons. Perhaps their legs have uneven coloring, perhaps they have visible veins. Possibly there are some women who don't feel properly dressed unless their legs are covered with pantyhose or stockings. Also of course there are some situations where going bare-legged is inappropriate, a job interview for instance.

If you are wearing open-toe shoes and you feel you must wear stockings or pantyhose then you may just be able to get away with it if you observe the following rules.

1. If you must wear stockings or pantyhose ensure they have an invisible toe area, ie. no toe seam or darker colored area.

2. Ideally your stockings should be flesh colored and very sheer, certainly no more than 10 denier. This will allow your toes to show through, and if the stockings are a fine enough knit only the closest inspection will detect that you are in fact wearing stockings.

3. If you really must wear colored stockings then at least co-ordinate them with your shoes. For example if your shoes are black then wear black stockings. Again they should be as sheer as possible but if you do this bear in mind that you are really defeating the purpose of wearing open-toe shoes!

4. Go for it and turn your fashion faux pas into a fashion statement! Discard the rules and wear whatever color stockings you want with your open-toe shoes. For the ultimate in anti-fashion how about black stockings with white shoes?

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