The "fun tight": why colourful tights are back

In London Fashion Week's street style galleries there is one look that works as a manifesto on its own: Ashley Williams' "I Heart Me" tights, leopard-print boots, a colourful fur-trimmed tweed coat, a striped tie, a patterned knit and a long string of pearls. All at once, all clashing, all intentional. It is the perfect picture of the "fun tight", the colourful, decorated hosiery that, after years of discreet nudes and blacks, has become the most entertaining thing in the wardrobe again. It is not the first time. Sixty years ago, a pair of mustard-yellow tights was enough to tell the world whose side you were on.

London, February 2026: the comeback goes on record

The phenomenon was given a name by Coveteur, in a piece by Bianca Asare published on 24 February 2026 under a title that says it all: "All Hail, Fun Tights!". Its starting point was London Fashion Week autumn/winter 2026, where tights turned up in many forms, on the catwalk and outside it, from pops of colour to dainty lace and patterns nobody expected to see below the hem.

On the runway, Bora Aksu paired "white lace tights" with "a dark gray anti-traditional bride look, complete with a tulle cape and veil". Sinead Gorey played across several registers: argyle tights with a military-detailed shirt dress, and pale blue tights matched to a pale blue coat. Off the runway, street style did the rest, with zebra and tiger prints worn as the statement piece and, of course, Ashley Williams' hearts under leopard boots.

Coveteur's reading is cultural before it is aesthetic: "as we move away from the era of quiet luxury, maximalism and color-clashing are once again emerging on the runways". After seasons of camel coats and neutrals, tights are the cheapest and most reversible way to break the rules: they cost little, take up almost no space and change an outfit completely. But to understand why they work so well, you need to go back sixty years.

The Sixties: when a coloured leg was a revolution

Before tights there were stockings. As the Victoria and Albert Museum recalls, women mostly wore "American Tan" stockings held up by garters or suspender belts: uncomfortable, restrictive garments that in practice kept skirts below the knee. Tights themselves, stocking and brief in one, already existed: according to Time, Allen Gant of Glen Raven Mills had developed them and launched them in 1959 as "Panti-Legs". What made them take off was the miniskirt, in the mid-Sixties. When models such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton started wearing it, young women rushed out to buy tights of their own.

Media historian Moya Luckett, quoted by Time, spells out what was at stake. "Prior to the mini, it was expected that women would wear the full gamut of foundation garments and slips," she says. "Tights, as much as the mini, were a gesture of freedom and one that pointed towards youthfulness."

In London, the decisive name is Mary Quant. The V&A notes that coloured tights had reached Marks & Spencer by autumn 1963 but caught on slowly because of the price: in 1966 a pair cost 12 shillings, roughly three times as much as stockings. Quant partnered with the Nylon Hosiery Company, founded in 1954 by the Curry family, recent emigrants from India, to produce tights in "bright mustard yellow, ginger and prune, as well as black". In 1966 came the "Highball" glitter stockings, in silver, gold, green, blue and red, with the daisy logo on the packet.

The result, according to the museum, was a quiet revolution. By the 1970s tights were outselling stockings, and in 1973 the Sunday Times observed that while Quant "hadn't invented fashion tights, she was the reason most women wore them". The V&A calls her hosiery line, still going in the 1980s, perhaps "the most revolutionary, yet underappreciated, of her ideas".

From punk to the Eighties

From then on, the decorated leg never really left the stage; it simply changed tribes. In the Eighties Madonna wore fishnet tights as part of an unmistakably punk-influenced look, as a Barnebys feature on her style recalls: the fishnet, a long-standing symbol of seduction, became a sign of pop rebellion. The mechanism was the same as in the Sixties: a generation using the most intimate corner of the wardrobe to say something in public.

The revival: from Valentino pink to TikTok

Today's revival has a starting point that many people pin down precisely. In March 2022 Pierpaolo Piccioli showed Valentino's autumn/winter collection almost entirely in "Pink PP", a vivid pink created for the house. Writing in AnOther, Alexander Fury described models "with limbs smothered in gloves and stockings", pink on pink against a pink set, until they resembled "a floating, surrealist bust". According to fashion expert Dina Solomon, quoted by PureWow, "that runway moment reframed tights as a look-defining piece."

Since then, tights have become a talking point again. Julia Townsend, president of the American hosiery group Kayser-Roth, told PureWow that "tights are the accessory of the moment, a trend driven by Millennials and Gen Z who have moved this category from practical to a true fashion must-have." The same piece names Zendaya, Hailey Bieber and Alexa Chung among the stars who have made hosiery a focal point, with opaques under oversized blazers or sheers under denim shorts, and notes that on the autumn/winter 2026 runways Miu Miu and Saint Laurent paired micro skirts with sheer black tights. TikTok is full of styling videos built around coloured and patterned pairs, and London Fashion Week simply made it official.

How to wear it without looking like you are in costume

The "I Heart Me" look works because it is excessive with conviction. If you want to approach the trend with a little less noise, a few practical rules:

• Get the weight right. For a full but not flat colour, a 30 to 40 denier semi-opaque gives, in Fogal's words, "soft coverage with a visible color effect"; from 50 denier up the colour becomes solid, closer to Valentino's Pink PP.
• One star only. If the tights are patterned, keep the rest of the outfit to two or three solid colours.
• Echo a colour. Sinead Gorey's trick, pale blue tights with a pale blue coat, is the easiest to copy: the leg reads as an extension of the coat.
• Pale lace with black. As at Bora Aksu: a romantic contrast that never looks childish.
• Animal print, in moderation. If you are wearing leopard boots, choose a small-scale pattern or a plain colour on the legs.
• Keep shoes simple. Loafers, plain boots or low court shoes leave the stage to your tights.

Where to find them

Coveteur's edit spans a wide range, from luxury to everyday: Paula Canovas Del Vas, Swedish Stockings, Wolford, MeMoí, Los Angeles Apparel, L'eggs, Hue, Wolf & Badger and Ashley Williams herself. Proof that the fun tight is not a runway whim: it is already on the shelves, at every price point.

Sixty years after Mary Quant, the colourful tight still does the same job: it costs little, comes off in a second and says a great deal. Perhaps that is why it returns every time fashion gets tired of being serious.