Sheer black tights are back: Elizabeth Debicki, Emmy Rossum and the red-carpet looks of the week

Three evenings in Los Angeles, the same idea three times: a short black dress, a veil of black on the legs, a pointed shoe. On 17 October Emmy Rossum wore it at The Envelope Insiders Live, on 20 October Elizabeth Debicki wore it to the premiere of Wicker, and the same day Hailey Bieber was photographed on a shoot with sheer black tights under a black satin look. None of them credits the tights. All of them make the same point.

A few days earlier The New York Times had put a name on it: sheer black hosiery, it wrote, has stepped out of "the fashion wilderness".

Why now: the New York Times piece

The article, republished by the Malaysian daily The Star on 18 October, was written during the Paris shows. It opens with a simple observation: "a glimpse of sheer black stockings", after years in the wilderness, "is no longer shocking", and in Paris the writer counted "a number of editors wearing sheer black hose who in the past would have determinedly bared their legs even in the midst of a snowstorm".

Part of the credit goes to Anthony Vaccarello, who has been dedicated to "the (Helmut) Newtonian cocktail-hour allure of sheer hose and stilettos since arriving at the label in 2016", and to "his bevy of highly visible muses such as Hailey Bieber and Zoe Kravitz, who put his ideas into red-carpet action". The article adds Antonin Tron at Balmain, Demna at Gucci, Nadège Vanhee at Hermès and Eckhaus Latta, and the return of the short skirt: "where there are skirts", says Linda Fargo of Bergdorf Goodman, "there are tights". Even in Saint Laurent's spring/summer 2027 show, all gold, the few looks with hosiery had sheer black tights, as we noted in our Paris preview.

Then come the denier choices of two women who wear them. Sara Moonves, editor of W, met at the Courrèges show in sheer black tights and a pencil skirt: "They just make your legs look good." She likes Wolford's 40 denier. The British journalist Olivia Singer, who wears them almost every day, buys three-packs of 10 denier matte tights from Marks & Spencer, twice a year, because, as Moonves admits, "They will run."

Elizabeth Debicki at the Wicker premiere

The clearest version of the look came on Tuesday 20 October, at the Los Angeles premiere of Black Bear's Wicker at the DGA Theater. CelebMafia describes a black velvet mini dress with "a subdued finish", black pointed-toe pumps and no "prominent handbag or statement jewelry". On the legs: "Sheer black tights extend the dark palette without completely obscuring the legs." The designer of the dress and the tights brand are not named.

In the full-length photos the dress has a wide square neckline and thick straps, ends high on the thigh, and the tights are matte, with the skin clearly visible through the black and darker at the knee: on our reading of the pictures, somewhere around 15 to 20 denier. The pumps are the same black, with a sharp toe. Next to her co-stars Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård, it is the most pared-back look on the carpet.

Emmy Rossum at The Envelope

Three days earlier, on 17 October, Emmy Rossum was at The Envelope Insiders Live, the Los Angeles Times event, at the Culver Theater. In the photos by Ian Spanier described by CelebMafia, she wears "a sleeveless, square-neck dress with sheer black tights and pointed stiletto pumps", the pumps "glossy" with slender heels. No designer and no tights brand is given. We found no agency photos of the evening we could embed, so here the description has to do the work: it is, almost line for line, the same formula as Debicki's.

Hailey Bieber on set

The third look is less of a red carpet. According to Hola!, on 20 October Hailey Bieber was photographed during a fashion shoot at Dust Studios in Los Angeles in a butterfly-shaped bralette, sheer mesh, and a short black satin bottom "with a bloomer-like effect", with black-and-white peep-toe platforms. "Sheer black tights continued the dark palette." The photos are paparazzi shots and the magazine or brand behind the shoot is not named, so we take it as a hint rather than a look to copy. It is worth noting only because the New York Times names Bieber as one of the women who brought Vaccarello's sheer hose to the red carpet in the first place.

Also this month: Uma Thurman, Elisabeth Shue and Rita Ora

The week of Debicki and Rossum was not an isolated one. On 8 October in New York, at the "Dexter" 20th anniversary celebration and the season 2 premiere of Dexter: Resurrection at Chelsea Industrial, Uma Thurman wore a short black double-breasted blazer dress with satin lapels and pointed black pumps. CelebMafia sums up the legs: "Sheer black tights extend the dark palette below the short hem", and notes that the transparent hosiery keeps the lower half lighter than opaque black would.

Five days later in Hollywood, at the world premiere of Whalefall at the El Capitan Theatre on 13 October, Elisabeth Shue chose a black long-sleeved mini dress covered in red roses, with sheer black tights and black platform heels with ankle straps. CelebMafia liked the tights ("Sheer black tights continued the dark palette beneath the short dress") less than the platforms, which it found heavy for the dress. Neither look credits the tights.

In London on 16 October Rita Ora headlined the second amfAR London Gala, at the Chancery Rosewood, and for her performance she turned Snow White's colours into a cabaret costume: a blue bra with a satin-like sheen and black lace at the neckline, a short, wide yellow tulle tutu, a narrow glossy red belt and a towering black bow above her head. CelebMafia gets to the legs last: "sheer black tights continue into dark platform heels below". Neither the costume nor the tights are credited; Footwear News credits only what she wore on arrival, a Philip Treacy headpiece and Saint Laurent platform pumps. Getty's photos of the evening show her only in the black look she arrived in, so we found no photo of the costume to embed.

Different women, different silhouettes, the same formula: a short hem, a veil of black on the legs, a dark shoe.

Why it works with a short black dress

The look relies on very little. A short black dress, in velvet or plain crêpe, shows a lot of leg; bare legs make it a summer dress, opaque tights make it a winter uniform. A sheer black tight sits in between: it covers just enough to look finished, and lets the leg still read as a leg.

The pointed pump does the rest. In the same black as the tights, it continues the line from the hem to the toe, the same pairing we saw on the runway at Celine, look after look, and at Brock, with kitten heels. In October Charli XCX wore it with a leather blazer at the InStyle Imagemakers, and Olivia Rodrigo on stage in barely-there Wolford tights.

None of this means black is winning everywhere. Swedish Stockings told Glossy that black fell from about 80% to 65–70% of its sales, as we wrote in our piece on its New York pop-up: colour is growing. But what is left of black is moving towards sheer.

How to wear it

• Pick the denier for the effect, not the season. 10 denier is barely there and ladders at a glance; 15 to 20 is the veil seen on Debicki; 40, Moonves' choice, shows more black while the leg still reads. Above 50 it turns opaque. Our denier guide has the full scale.
• Matte, not shiny. With velvet or crêpe a matte tight keeps the look quiet. A tight with a sheen, like Wolford's Neon 40, is for evenings when the dress is simple.
• Same black from dress to shoe. No contrast at the ankle. A pointed pump, a slingback or a kitten heel; a chunky sole makes a sheer leg look thin.
• One piece of jewellery, or none. Debicki wore almost nothing else. Sheer black already carries the look.
• Buy in packs. As the New York Times piece admits, sheer black runs, and on black the run shows. A few tips on how to stop tights laddering help; a spare pair in the bag helps more.

For other colours with a black dress, there is our guide to what colour tights to wear with a black dress.

Shop the look

None of the three looks credits the tights, so every pair below is our choice and marked as "similar": Wolford's Fatal 15, matte and seamless, the closest to Debicki's veil; Wolford's Individual 10, for the lightest version; Wolford's Neon 40, if you want the 40 denier Sara Moonves talks about, with a sheen; and Calzedonia's Matt Totally Invisible 20, a cheaper matte black.

The photos

The photos of the Wicker premiere are embedded from Getty Images (Stewart Cook/Black Bear Pictures) and stay on Getty's servers with their credit. The photos of Uma Thurman and Elisabeth Shue are Getty embeds too. Rossum's, Bieber's and Rita Ora's stage looks are described from CelebMafia and Hola!; we have not published their photos. The quotes on the trend come from the New York Times article republished by The Star.