Brandy

My current favorites are Solidea http://www.legluxe.com/product/womens-hosiery/compression-stockings/french-cut-pantyhose/S013170

They seem to have good compression on the legs and look good. They wear OK as long as they are not caught by a sharp edge.

-- Brandy

Dear all

A little advice please?

I am a mountain bike racer and my friends would notice that I have shaved them, without good reason (there is no speed advantage in this case!)

Richard

PS; if you're really helpful i'll post photos.....

Pardon?

I am bicyclist my self and the reason for removing leg hair has nothing to do with speed. It is for when you crash!! Having had my share of road rash and the first serious case was before I removed the leg hair there is serious pain with the tape. After removing the tape a few times the hair has been ripped out. I then shaved the rest.

By the way when your skin turns black-and-blue from the tape use MUCH less tape or self adhesive telfa bandages and use tights (compresson/support hose is the best) to hold the bandages in place. Use body lotion to keep the small scabs from drying out to much. When the scabs dry they shrink a bit and cause an itchy pain that will drive you nuts. You only use the bandages over the major skin loss zones.

-- Brandy

Well in my part of the world the weather is a bit overcast. There was rain this morning for breakfast caught me by surprise with a few things left outside. I just came in from grocery shopping. I can say DO NOT go grocery shopping while hungry and/or depressed!!! Mom's day I said a little thank you prayer for all the things that she gave me. Mom died at 93 last month. So enjoy'em while you have'em as it is not forever. Other than that life in general has been pretty good to me. I am still employed, I can put food on the table and have a decent roof over my head. -- Brandy

First it is remarkable how long this poll has run. Next I wonder how well the demographics here map to the general population, as about 70% of the respondents are male and wear skirts or kilts. For me I wear either I was in a long skirt all day yesterday and today I'll be in a kilt of some kind. With yesterdays skirt were 2" Cuban heeled ankle boots, today will be steel toed work boots - yard work, with a UK Workman's kilt. -- Brandy

Having just read this thread reminds me the same arguements, concerns, feelings are common among other shall we say male "fashion forward", freestylers.

For the men;

Similar conversations can be found on skirtcafe.org, for men wearing skirts, on http://forums.delphiforums.com/LegwearUF/ for men wearing tightd/pantyhose, I'm sure if I did a little more searching, more forums would popup.

For equal time for the ladies;

http://fashionmylegs.blogspot.com/ for women who prefer to wear pantyhose/tights and who prefer skirts/dress instead of trousers.

I once got into a discussion with a lady at work about her wearing skirts, she like my Utilikilt/akirt. She did not wear skirts because people were so use to seeing her in jeans/pants that they would comment about her wearing skirts and she was uncomfortable about getting comments.

-- Brandy

Found at Zappos; Gabriella Rocha Dolly, looks like a Cuban heel in a ankle boot. Sole is thick enough you do not feel every pebble and there is a good foot pad cushion. I bought the black, the tan is a better picture. Heel makes some noise but does not echo down the hallway.

Hi,

Why is it that every time a man goes outside of the box he is considerred to be gay. Most people beleive you are gay if you wear skirts, dresses, earrings, nail polish, heels etc. I wouldn't mind if they called us different but the attidude that we are automatically gay makes me angry.

And some info about me. I am a 51 year old male that likes to wear both earrings, skirts and heels. Some days I wear normal male clothes and shoes other days a skirt and the rest male attire and other days the whole shebang. I am however not a cross dresser, I still wan't to be a man wearing female clothing, or male versiosn of female clothers and shoes.

/Stefan

Because it is easier to put a person in a box that has already been defined for them, no thinking required. Many people are very lazy to actually expend time, energy and thought to build a new box is toooo painful for many.

The same laments can be found elsewhere for example; http://onlywhoiam.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/a-totally-random-rant-about-tights/ the rant here is a mother putting her son in tights.

You will find similar comments at skirtcafe.org, leg ware (pantyhose)http://forums.delphiforums.com/LegwearUF/start and in the various threads here.

Most of this is learned at the knees of our parents, and as adults we have not learned to think for ourselves all we do is parrot what was learned. The parroting can be because of fear from external criticism, retribution, or our own internal fears. The internal fears and giving ourselves permission is often the hardest to do. Recognizing that the “box” is truly wrong and trying to do something about it can present real external danger. I’ll leave that to your imagination as the news is full of examples.

Fortunately for most of us in US and Europe the biggest fear is internal. The only way many will learn to accept the new “box” is actually meeting “one of us” and see that we are no different than anyone else. Our choice of attire may not fit the standard “box” but there is nothing wrong with the “new box”.

For me personally I no longer think of “skirts, tights/pantyhose, heels” as “women’s” clothes. It is all just clothes and it is all male when I wear it. This reminds of a true story. I was in a leather store in Nevada City, CA looking at leather jackets. There was a couple in looking at shoes. The wife was trying on boots/shoes and it seemed the women’s sizes were all too small – Not Heels! The store clerk had her try on a pair of men’s and they fit. Her HUSBAND says BUT those are MENS shoes! Her reply was “They will be MINE when I buy and wear them and that will make them women’s”.

Brandy, thanks for the links. All of them were very interesting and got me searching around. I started looking for the H & M skirts for men and found this article:

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/h-m-s-new-collection-features-skirts-for-men-547911/#photoViewer=1

The author seems to think that tights are not appropriate for a men's skirt. To me, this begs the question - what are guys supposed to wear with a skirt?

For a moment I wondered which author you were talking about. Hope has extensive positive stuff on her site. To much gushing some times.

The one on Yahoo Joanna was totally negative. She did not like anything from H&M. I would ignore as she seems to be stuck in a fashion mud hole.

People like boxes and when you do not fit in one of their boxes you get tossed in the trash. Joanna seems to have a very small set of boxes to play with. I've noticed the people on this site like to build new boxes usually from tearing down old ones (recycling).

Over on a site name Hubpages there is a blogger name Hope Alexander. The blogs are short with to the pointed advice. An example:

Formal Skirts For Men

http://hubpages.com/hub/Formal-Skirts-For-Men

Tarantino Wears High Heels, Men Wear High Heels

http://hubpages.com/hub/Tarantino-Wears-High-Heels-Men-Wear-High-Heels

It takes a little digging but the Lady as some really good sugestions.

Start here:

http://hubpages.com/author/Hope+Alexander/latest/

-- Brandy

Scrappy, I would recommend that you at least report this to your HR. Even if you have no intention to presue any further. Reporting to HR helps establish a prime-facie case, just in case he does it again. If no action is taken then by default he will see it as approval of his actions and may embolden him to more less savory actions. HR can not do anything unless they they have a report to work with. Not reporting or taking some kind of action tells him he got away with it and may embolden him to be more offensive next time. I believe that most city fire department have fairly strict HR departments. A formal report like this will go on his record. What you do not know what other things he has done and what his future actions maybe. Where I work at HR reports are taken very seriously.

Just wanted to say Happy New Year from California.

I just put in another order for more Solidea Namoi 70 from legluxe.com.

I can wear the 70's all day 12 -16 hours without a problem.

http://www.legluxe.com/support_socks.php?item=300&cat=218

These are actually support hose. BUT they are not your mothers support hose (unless she wears Solidea).

They are very comfortable, stay in place and at the end of the day my leggs donot hurt as much.

--Brandy

I just got around to watching last weekend session endinf episodes. I King Arthurs day I did not know women wore 4" heels. I caught a shot of Morgana being backlite against a window, skirt opened on a step and I spoted 4" heels. I can not due video capture from my DVR and I deleted it. -- Brandy

WNMT That picture looks awesome!! I'll have to keep that in mind. -- Brandy

Well this is the day after getting off of an airplane, sitting all day either cramped in an airplane or sitting waiting for my plane. My legs are feeling pretty good. I used Oroblu-70's. Two years ago I got off an airplane and I had some of the worest leg pains I ever had they lasted for several days until I remember I had support hose in the drawer. This year I made sure I traveled in pantyhose and my legs are feeling pretty good. I also traveled in a Utilikilt. I had NO harassment from anyone. Lots of people seen the UK and the hose was hard to miss. For those still sitting on the fence about wearing a skirt out. Two answers: * Just do it. * OR start with a Utilikilt they have a built-in acceptance factor, by all those who have gone before. Shoes, wear something approiate and comfortable, I worn flat sandles no heels, I had to be my own pack mule. -- Brandy

If you wear support hose the nicest feeling ones I have found are Solidea. Can be found at; http://www.legluxe.com/support_hose.php?cat=218&viewall=1&all=1

I am sure there are others, but these are nice. There is one thing I do not care for, for XL and above they do the typical thing of adding a wedge in the back to make extra width. This causes problems with getting the seams in a place wear they do not rub.

Try'em if you ike'em write and complain about the wedge. The idea is to let them know there is an untapped market.

-- Brandy

Just my thoughts from buying shoes and things in general. There is the bottom, mid range, top end. Very often the is a BIG difference between bottom, and mid range. There is less difference between mid-range and top end, you are paying more for product name than improvement in product. In shoes I find a very large difference in quaility between $20 shoes and $150 shoes. I do not have any $600 shoes as I have found none worth it for me. I might pay $600 for a pair of shoes that are customise for my foot problems and the shoes also help fix my leg length differences. I would then be in less day-to-day pain and THAT would be worth it. $600 just to say I have Louboutin no. -- Brandy

I went out today and was planning on wearing a certain pair of trousers. They had an average inseam, but when I tried them on with my heels they just didn't look right fully exposed. So, I switched to jeans with a longer length. In my opinion it just looked like I was wearing high water pants with my heels. They would be fine with flats, but not with heels.

As for women wearing pants that are too long, until I started heeling I would have never really understood that either. It is funny how I have several pair of jeans and trousers that are exactly alike, except one pair is longer than the other. I think there are a lot of young women who are still learning how to dress or are building a wardrobe. My hat goes off to women for the effort it takes to get their look just right - something that I could have only learned from heeling.

OK, $64 question. What length skirt would you have worn with the same shoes?

Get pantyhose that FIT well and they will be more comfortable, less hassle. Unles you have an urge for one over the other.

Answer the door. Since I will probably also have a kilt/skirt of some kind on, what difference would it make. The eyes probably would not get off the skirt anyway.

-- Brandy

So as I was eating dinner the door bell went off. Since I was watching the news with a tray on my lap. I was enough to get up, set the tray down, wipe my hands off and get to the door.

Not considering I was wearing my new Sofft Rochelle ankle boots, ankle length skirt, with support hose underneath.

As perdicted the eyes never made it past the skirt.

So what is the best way to hide a pair of heels? In plain sight, under a skirt.

-- Brandy

This for everyone; please leave a note on your experience. I personally do not wear High Heels very much and when I do, not to exceed 3". So that makes me pretty pedestrian heel wearer. When I do wear it is off the clock so to say not at work. If I really wanted I suppose I could but I have no desire. Recently I have become bored and wanted to get out of the house. So I put on a nice ankle length skirt, shirt and jacket and go to the local Performing Arts Center. For foot wear I would use my over-calf black boots 3" inch heel. I like this but with warmer weather coming I thought I would find some ankle height boots or bootie shoes. I did find a pair of Sofft Rochelle that fit wonderfully. They have about a 3" inch heel and REALLY GOOD insole and sole. Flashback: when I was 13 years old I was on my bicycle and was hit by a car. My right leg was broken. Since this corresponded with a growth spurt my right leg is 5/8" shorter than my left. Back to today: I normally wear a 1/2" heel insert/lift. BUT back pain is a constant companion. Even with heels I still slip some kind of heel lift into the right shoe. This last week I have been at home walking a lot in the Rochelle's sorting out the size, etc. AND I have noticed that my back pain has lessened. Now doctors, podiatrists have all said High Heels are bad for your feet. OK I went through a lot of trouble to get a rounded toe box with enough width so my toes are not cramped. QUESTION: Has anyone else noticed an easing of back pain while wearing "Heels"? -- Brandy

Answer the door. Since I will probably also have a kilt/skirt of some kind on, what difference would it make. The eyes probably would not get off the skirt anyway. -- Brandy

Hmmm, makes me wonder what her feelings really are. From the tone of your post I suspect you are wondering also. I would call it passive/aggressive. She says nice things to you and compliments you and then in the next breath puts you down. I get the impression you think there is a large negative there, I agree with you. She is not good for you in the long run. It would be good for you to let her know enough is enough, and stand your ground. Even in high heels! -- Brandy

How about Sofft Rochelle on sale at Zappos. Size 11W they seem to run a bit large the first time I have had shoes that ran large for size. They say 2 3/4" heels they feel taller, lots of room in the toe box. I just tried them on with heavy winter rib tights very comfy! They have a 3/8" platform sole, and a THICK cushion sole inside nicely leather lined. For girls shoes these are more comfortable than any boys shoes I have bought in a long time. eerrr I'm not counting the steel toes, etc... I am a Sofft fan now. Copied from website, Product Information: * Show your impeccable sense of style with the ‘Rochelle’ ankle boot. * Soft calfskin leather with fold-over collar and convenient side zip. * Full leather lining wicks away moisture to keep your feet dry and comfortable. * Lightly padded footbed provides cushioning and support for all-day wear. * Beautiful leawood stacked heel with non-skid, floral-embossed polyurethane outsole for durability. * 2 3/4" heel. * 6" shaft. * 11.75" circumference. * 13.00 oz.

... " yes your point is? ... If I buy them they will be MY jeans." I was in a western/leather store in Nevada City, CA a number of years ago. I found a jacket there once. Over heard conversation, wife was trying on some boots I guess they had some sizing problem, in a rasied voice form the woman " when I buy them, they will be MY boots." I suspect she was trying one mens boots. Another comment from a GAP sales girl. "I have such a hard time getting women to try on mens jeans when they would fit so much better." I was heading into a fitting room to try on a skirt! I do not remeber if I bought that one. -- Brandy