MOCHI > The Workshop > Sewing > Dressing Room > Underbits > Hosiery

For a certain range of costumes, regular ol' pantyhose is just fine. You can easily find a range of "normal" skin colors. With some hunting in shops like Hot Topic, you can find more unusual color combinations (like green and white horizontal stripes), materials (like vinyl), and styles (like side lacing). On the plus side, regular pantyhose is pretty cheap. This is good because pantyhose also tends to run. We try to bring at least two pairs of pantyhose when going to cons.

If a costume need pantyhose that's an unusual color or style, you may want to buy several pairs for a private "stash". Nothing sucks more than walking into a store and discovering that the perfect pair of pantyhose is "discontinued".

Wherever possible, though, MOCHI likes to use dance tights. Dance tights have a couple of nice advantages. First, they are more opaque than regular pantyhose. They do a much better job of hiding blemishes. Second, they are designed to take more physical abuse than regular pantyhose. It takes more than a fingernail to get a run in dance legwear.

For one costume, we had to cut the waistband and turn it under (so it wouldn't show). With normal pantyhose, this would be asking for trouble: it would probably start a run going down each side. No problem with the dance tights.

There are, of course, disadvantages. It is harder to find dance tights in unusual colors. If you want a certain shade of light blue, you will probably need to dye or paint them. If you don't live in an area that has a dance supply shop, you may be restricted to what you can find on-line. But the biggest disadvantge is probably cost: a pair of these tights might cost up to three or four times as much as regular pantyhose. This balances out if you have to replace a lot of pantyhose, but the price tag can look steep.

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