31st October 2024

Black is black?

philippanestie Culture, Fashion tights

No…not like the song ‘I want my baby back’, this is about tights. Scouring through my tights collection it seems to reveal that just stating ‘black’ isn’t enough, there has to be something else. I mean I’ve heard of ‘barely black’ suggesting a more transparent effect (even though on the actual packet they look decidedly white…). Further searching through I found some ‘vaguely black’ tights, this title I really liked. Vaguely says exactly what it means on the tin, a ‘sort of black’ though not quite…nearly there…so yes, ‘vaguely black’ is an accurate description! But the strangest of all was ‘Black Bottom’, what? How can pair a tights be called ‘black bottom’? What does it mean? Is it just referring to the ‘pants’ area?

No…the whole pair are black, from top to toe. Dating from either the late 1960s or early 1970s would this reveal the strange name? Brand ‘Pex’ or ‘Spindrift’ returned no positive results online, therefore a rare pair? Maybe…despite its prominent gold label, I’ve never come across this before and to be perfectly frank a name you might not be able to ‘use’…there is some humour here, but I needed to know more. On further searching instead of typing in ‘Pex’ or  ‘Spindrift’, I simply put in ‘black bottom’ and as I did something in my mind clicked…like the tights, I ‘vaguely’ remembered hearing about a ‘black bottom’ dance. Now I get it, it must be a tribute to the dance, which originated in New Orleans in the early 20th century. Fantastic! At last I have an answer, hallelujah! It was also known as a challenger to the Charleston dance from the same era. Straight onto YouTube I found a clip from 1927, it certainly looks a fun yet raunchy dance, also highly energetic. And with my current mobility issues I can only imagine doing the dance, because if I tried I might end up either flat on the floor or in a very tight corner! At least I know what this random name means now…I’m just so relieved to have gotten to the ‘bottom’ of it!