What Katie Did Seamed Stockings

1. If you need a garter belt, put it on now.
2. Make sure your feet are well moisturized, and that your toenails are trimmed and free of hangnails.
3. Take the same precautions with your hands. To be extra safe, you can use hosiery gloves to protect your stockings from your hands.
4. Grasp the opening of the stocking, and slowly gather the stocking into your hand. Continue down the leg until you have the whole leg bunched in your hands and your fingers have reached the toe.
5. Put your foot into the stocking. Make sure the stocking isn’t twisted. If you have a reinforced heel and/or toe, make sure everything is in the proper position. If your hosiery has a back seam, ensure that it is positioned correctly along the back of your heel.
6. Slowly pull the stocking up your leg. If you have a back seam (or other vertical decoration) you may find it helpful to do this in front of a mirror so you can check for squiggly lines as you go. If the seam is crooked, don’t pull on the stocking into position when it is already in your leg. Roll the stocking down to the area of the squiggle and carefully begin to pull the stocking up again with the line straight.
7. If you are wearing pantyhose, tights, or thigh-highs, you’re now done! If you are wearing stockings, it’s time to attach them to the garter belt.

Inspired by Queen Victoria, the Victorian Gothic era, and other things dark and exotic, the Fall/Winter collection features intricate details, interesting patterns, and intriguing designs.

Fall/Winter 1, currently available in stores, is inspired by Victorian Indian Summer with unique collections including Wild Life, a exotic, safari inspired pattern (incorporating zebra, leopard, and tiger markings!), Language of Flowers, featuring pops of a bold, floral pattern, Oriental Beauty, inspired by Persian palace architecture, Salomina, inspired by the geometry of Persian carpets, and Queer Pets, featuring an embroidered monogram as an accent to both the bras and panties.  Each group in cludes a variety of bra styles including padded plunge, padded plunge balcony, unpadded plunge balcony, and padded french balcony.  Corresponding panties include a thong, brazilian short, tanga, brief, and short.

Fall/Winter 2, Dark Fever, explores a parallel universe.  The Deamon collection, named after the wild animal alter egoes of The Golden Compass, include accent prints of snakes against raspberry red and leopard against chocolate brown.  The show stopper?  The animal print trims are zippers!  Hot!  The other collections include Dark Victoria, a classic floral lace pattern of black on grey inspired by the  elaborate mourning fashion of Queen Victoria, Beautiful Bat, black microfibre accented with leather and inspired by Victorian Gothic Horror and lady vampires, Masked Ball, black microfibre accented with ruffled elastic trim and edgy miniature gunmetal studs, Divination, featuring prints of 19th century copperplate writing and mythical creatures inspired by fortune telling and tarot cards, and Secret Society, a black stretch mesh featuring prints in silvery grey flock.  In addition to the bra and panty styles listed above, this range features a very sexy waspie in Dark Victoria, knitted top in Beautiful Bat, jersey top and eyemask in Masked Ball, suspender in Divination, and a body (aka teddy), peek-a-boo unpadded plunge, and stockings in Secret Society.

Christmas Crackers is the theme for Fall/Winter 3.  Collections include Key to Deliverance, black velvety flock on black mesh is accented by tiny patterned keys in gunmetal is inspired by A Christmas Carol, Red Xmas, a poinsettia colored collection sprinkled with glittering rhinestones, The Spirit of Christmas, styled with engraved flowers in deep purples and accented with a favorite phrase of Marlies, ‘Let me lead you elsewhere to that boundless space where your spirit is already free,’ Christmas Baubles, a ribbon braid  accented holly red microfibre celebrating the Victorian tradition of decorating a fir tree, and Global Fireworks, the Swarovski crystal adorned, Platinum collection which pays tribute to New Year’s Eve celebrations.  Again, the collection features a range of mix and match options for bras and panties and also include stockings in The Spirit of Christmas and suspenders, a babydoll, and a nightgown in Global Fireworks.

Marlies Dekkers bras range in sizes from A-F (including some maternity styles!) and panties XS-XXL.  Check Marlies Dekkers or your retailer for specifics.  Marlies Dekkers is sold at leading retailers including Journelle (where I just bought mine!), Neiman Marcus, and Honey’s Lingerie.

Very special thanks to the AMAZING photographer of all these looks – Carin Verbruggen.  What phenomenal photos!!!

No need to explain us why you’d want them, or why you like or dislike them – just let us know you want a pair!

That’s it, really. Head over to TLP’s Facebook, and get your entry in. While you’re there, check out Wickedelic’s page too!

Best of luck!

Obviously this is something of a marketing stunt – but I love it. Plus, it gives me a chance to plug our own little twitter-page located at @TheLingeriePost. Follow us too, will you?

By the way. Gabby’s other work is well worth mentioning too. She makes loads of tattoo-styled stocking, designed to be worn with a garter belt. All stockings, socks and tights are made at the designer’s home – and still sell under $25. Long live Etsy!

There is plenty of one-size-fits-most lingerie out there, but you probably don’t want to risk giving her that stretchy, crotchless, fishnet body stocking unless you know for sure that she wants one. Deserved or not, many one-size-fits-all garments can be seen as cheap and trashy, and no woman wants to think that you see her as cheap or trashy! Here are some fun lingerie gifts that are small enough for a stocking, easy to choose a size, and are pretty well-received:

Hanky Panky Ornament

Ornaments

Hanky Panky has cute star ornaments with the famous stretch lace thongs inside. The one size fits women sizes 4-12 (US) so it’s a no-brainer if your love is relatively slim. If you’re not sure, take a quick peek in her lingerie drawer. If her panties have sizes between 4 and 12 or are S, M, or L, these will probably fit. If she’s plus-size or petite, don’t worry – Hanky Panky has versions for sizes 0-4 and 14-20 (even customizable!) and you can pop it in a fillable ornament. Of course the fillable ornaments are great for any panties if you are lucky enough to know her size!

Stockings

Leg Avenue Holdups

Hosiery can be an easy gift because generally there are only a few size to choose from. This isn’t the time to spring for fully fashioned stockings, as those require a more precise fit, and brands like Leg Avenue are the easiest because they are one size fits most. They aren’t the highest quality stockings out there, but they are fun, flirty, and have unique details. If you haven’t seen her in a garter belt then she might not own one, so get holdups instead (they have silicone grips on the thigh so they stay up on their own). You can find Leg Avenue and more at Yandy, where you can also get an extra 10% off with the coupon code lingeriepost.

Pasties

If she’s daring, slip a few sets of pasties in her stocking. Beware: many women are not interested in wearing these. But if you know she likes pasties and nipple tassles already, these require no sizing information at all! Pastease has a large selection of simple stick-on pasties, and Etsy has pages of unique nipple tassles, with some sellers even taking custom orders. If you have a bit more money to spend, Ophelia Fancy has some gorgeous ones as well. Be sure to include some eyelash glue or fashion tape if your selection isn’t self-adhesive.

Pastease

Ophelia Fancy

Travel Accessories

Travel-related gifts hint at things to come, and would of course be especially exciting if they accompany plane tickets to an exotic location! Give her a lingerie travel bag for her suitcase and an eye mask (pictured is one by Mary Green) – black is a safe choice because chances are good that she has a black nightgown or chemise that it would match.

Mary Green Eye Mask

Any other good ideas we missed? Leave a comment! And remember, before you make your purchase, check our sales page for the best coupon codes and discounts!

Think you can do better? StockingsHQ’s recent email newsletter included these contest details:

It’s going to be the biggest change to the site since it began nearly a decade ago, and will be right at the cutting edge of Web 2.0 technology (which means lots of interactivity all your social networking malarkey) and more.

So, a thought occurred… why not open up the design process and have a logo competition. The rules are simple:

1. You can invent/create/design a new logo (and possibly slogan) for Stockings HQ using any font, colour scheme and design elements you like. It can be just a logo or a whole design treatment for the front page of the site. It has to be done on a computer but you can use any software you like.

2. All you have to do is email a JPEG or GIF to me (david@stockingshq.com) by the closing date of July 18th.

3. I’ll post the entries to a page on the site and work out some way of letting people vote on them.

4. The person who submits the winner (chosen by a combination of visitor votes and an editorial judging process) will get £100 to spend in the Stockings HQ shop.

5. We can’t guarantee to actually use it on the site (I haven’t seen any of the entries yet, so that would be a bit too much of a gamble!) but if it’s absolutely spot on, and you give us permission, it could well become the new official design for the site.

6. I’m sure I’ve missed something important, as it’s late at night and I’m sleep deprived, so I reserve the right to publish a more comprehensive set of rules on the site in due course.

7. And that’s it! Time to get creative…

If you have what it takes, head over to StockingsHQ.com to get a feel for the site. If you enter, be sure to let us all know in the forum so the TLP community can vote for your design!

Earlier this year, TLP brought you the new lingerie offering from Le Bourget. The founders of Le Bourget hosiery chose their name three years before Charles Lindbergh made his historic flight. Today Le Bourget ranks among the more well-known brands in hosiery. Le Bourget is offering sales from their corporate store. Pricing is in Euros and the text is in French.

The Jambieres Malek is in brown, nearly black, and black for 21,89 €

The Jambiere Opaque is in orange, brown, olive, and black for 8,97 €.

The Collant Chicissime Châtaigne is in brown or black for 16,42 €.

Collant Phabre is in black for 19,70 €.

Photos courtesy of Le Bourget.

Love Me lingerie is a relative start up in the hosiery game. This is a label designed in France with less than a five year history. The company has a Pinup line and then a Japanese comic-inspired line, Manga. They also have some knits going under the name “Bonnie Doon.”

This is the Eglantine. It is a hold-up in polkadot tuille with lycra. There are also small rhinestones adorning the top. Find it for 25 €.

From the Manga line, this is the Senji. It is a cotton and wool stocking with buttons and a silicone coated top. This is 52.36 €.

A little cherub adorned your leg with hearts in the Valentine. This is 20 Dernier hold-up. Find it for 39.20 €.

Also new for this season is the Julia Boheme. This 20D hold-up has velvet garland under the welt. It also has a velvet flower tattoo at the ankle. Find it for 27.63 €.

Photos courtesy of Love-Me.

The biggest change, however, may be the new color option! You can now buy your Vintage Dot RHT stockings in a versatile copper color, created by Secrets In Lace because of popular demand from you! Be sure to get your pair before the next wedding you attend this summer – what a perfect way to bring some interest to your outfit (and encourage glances at your gorgeous legs)!