Season's Greetings

As we get ready to celebrate the festive season and to say goodbye to 2009, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to pass on the greetings of the season.

I realise that the Sheer Geek blog has been quiet for several weeks; I have been inundated with work and so unfortunately the volume and rate of blog postings has sadly suffered. The good news is that I have a stack of part-written blog posts that I intend to finalise over the holiday period. There are also a few ideas and changes that I have planned for the blog that I will share with you in the near future. Please stay tuned!

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, the many readers of Sheer Geek, for your feedback and input throughout the last twelve months. Without you this blog would not exist.

To close, I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope that you enjoy a prosperous, peaceful, healthy and happy New Year.

New Men's Tights From The Czech Republic

Czech hosiery manufacturer ELA has released a range of tights for men.

Three styles of men's tights have been released and all three are available in two colours, namely black and tan/beige.

The first style in the range is called Adam. These tights are described as cosy and warm opaque men’s tights featuring front gusset. Comprising of 70% nylon and 30% elastane, they are listed as being 64 denier and are priced at 75 Czech Koruna each (approx £2.70 or $4.30).

The second style in the range is called David. Described by the manufacturer as cosy men’s tights featuring front gusset, these tights weigh in at 20 denier. These tights have a 97% nylon and 3% elastane composition and are priced at 32 Czech Koruna per pair (£1.15 or $1.85).

Lastly, the third style in the range is called Patrik Vital Activ. These tights feature flat seams and are rated at 40 denier. Comprising of 75% nylon and 25% Lycra, these tights are priced at just 80 Czech Koruna per pair (£2.90 or $4.60).

At this price point, this range of men's tights would seemingly be the cheapest presently available on the market.

I look forward to trying these tights in the near future and will post my thoughts about them in due course.

All three styles of tights within the ELA range of men's tights are available for purchase from the manufacturer's website.

Mantyhose In The Media - A Response

Steve Newman, the marketing director of ActivSkin and author of the Nylon Gene blog, has published an article on Examiner.com to counter the wave of negative press that has recently been in circulation in the UK.

Several British national newspapers have run stories recently about the new range of men's legwear that retailer Selfridges have added to their menswear range. Even though the photos published to accompany the various articles would suggest that the legwear in question is actually more like loosely fitting leggings than either opaque or sheer tights, the newspapers have been quick to pour scorn on the idea of men wearing tights (or mantyhose as they insist on calling them) in any form. Headlines include "Would You Let Your Boyfriend Wear These?" (Daily Mail) and "Men In Tights Are An Abomination" (Daily Telegraph). The legwear from Selfridges costs an eye-watering £70 per pair. Contrast that to an average price of approximately £7 - £10 for a good quality pair of men's tights.

Of course, the real reason that these stories have been given such exposure here in the UK is because we are still deep in the "Silly Season" - the period when parliament is taking it's summer break and newspaper editors are desperate to fill the pages of their publications. Consequently, stories like "Men's Tights" are easy prey for lazy journalists looking to pad out their newspapers with stories that will whip up the general public into a state of indignation and horror. Similar stories appeared in August last year (see this Daily Mail article as an example).

The most recent publication to take up the story is the BBC On-Line Magazine which has today (September 29th) published a review of the new Selfridges legwear under the headline "What Sort Of Man Wears Mantyhose?". The article is accompanied by a video review where the author wears the new "Mantyhose" (and accompanying skirt!) and ventures out into the street to gauge public opinion. A few quotes from Steve Newman can be found at the end of the article.

Steve's article can be found here: http://bit.ly/JNhcg and is well worth reading.

Levee WoMan New Photos (New Packaging?)

I have recently been perusing the men's hosiery section of the shapings.com website. For those of you who do not know, Shapings.com (based in Ontario, Canada) are a major retailer of hosiery products and offer a fantastic range of tights and pantyhose for men from various manufacturers. They supply their wares throughout North America and the rest of the World. Shapings.com go much further than a lot of hosiery resellers in that they produce unique photos to accompany the majority of the products that they sell.

On my most recent visit to their site I noticed that there were new photos to accompany the Levee WoMan range of unisex pantyhose and tights. I am uncertain if these photos are exclusive to Shapings.com or whether they are new product packaging photos from Levee. Either way these photos are HOT!

The styles with the new photos are: Perfect Skin (15 denier tights), Dimension (20 denier tights) and Sensation (40 denier tights).

Photos below are taken from the shapings.com website and depict a red-blooded man and woman enjoying themselves whilst wearing the unisex tights. Click photos for larger versions.




Lets hope that these photos help eradicate the stigma, misconceptions and bigotry that surrounds the men's hosiery movement.

I aim to try some of these tights in the next few weeks/months. As soon as I do, I will post a review here on SheerGeek.

Comfilon Price Increases

Unfortunately, Comfilon have announced that they are having to raise their prices across their range of tights for men and pantyhose for men.

Writing on his Nylon Gene blog, Steve Newman the marketing director of Comfilon stated that due to increased supplier costs Comfilon are regrettably having to increase the prices of their goods: "...as of mid-October prices will go up pretty much across the board...".

Read the full article and explanation over at the Nylon Gene blog.

New Blog

Here is a link to an interesting new blog: http://tightsformen.blogspot.com/

There are already a few entries posted about the author - a straight man that describes his life-long "hobby" of wearing tights in a non-fetish way.

I look forward to watching this blog develop.

Comfilon On TV

Steve Newman, spokesman for ActivSkin Legwear for Men appeared on Daytime Columbus (WCMH-TV/NBC4) with host Gail Hogan. They discussed sports/recreational applications for support tights and pantyhose made exclusively for men. Steve said that ActivSkin believes that they are just as well suited for men as for women, because men are just as likely to have tired, achy legs or need additional warmth, as women--and ActivSkin provides a masculine alternative to fill the gap.

Check out the video below.



Great work Steve! Let's hope that this helps accelerate the acceptance in main stream society of men wearing tights or pantyhose.