Men have been wearing tights for centuries, and really only in the most recent century has there been a stigma associated with wearing tights for men.  Indeed, nowadays only athletes can get away with wearing them in public, and only when actually playing their sport.  Yet the benefits of wearing tights extend far beyond the playing field. For one thing, tights are arguably the most comfortable garment ever invented, as is evidenced by the fact that men have been wearing them for so long.

During the time of the Italian Renaissance, paintings from the early 16th century depict men wearing what appears to be the equivalent of pantyhose. Some men wore codpieces over their private parts; others wore close-fitting knee-length pants. This fashion makes sense actually, considering that riding horses was the main method of transportation in that era.

In the 17th century, the practice of wearing male stockings continued, were called “cannions.” The men wore “paned” or “pansied round hose” on top, which reached from the waist to about mid- to lower-thigh and were full at the bottom, close fitting at the top. As the century drew past its midpoint, the round hose turned into breeches, which ended just at the knee or just below it. The cannions became known as stockings and usually ended at the knee and were held up with garters that also held the breeches closed.
This fashion continued until the early 1800′s when breeches finally were replaced with trousers. It’s uncertain whether men continued to wear stockings under their trousers, perhaps for added warmth, or not. Regardless, the advent of the trouser spelled an end to the social acceptability of tights for men. Not even when swimming were men pictured in tights. Of course circus performers and ballet dancers wore tights, and even as late as the 1950′s saw boys in Europe wearing lederhosen, but as far as mainstream dressing goes, tights for men were gone.

After that, it’s extremely difficult to find any reference to a man wearing tights in public for any reason other than to dance on a stage, until 1979 when soccer player Keith Weller wore a pair of his wife’s tights during an FA Cup game because he was suffering from groin strain. Since then, more and more athletes have been wearing sport tights during game and practices, and if you stroll around a large city park in the autumn, you might see some men shooting hoops wearing tights for extra warmth.

As the fashion cycle rolls slowly around back to its beginning, tights for men are showing up on runways and in metropolitan areas, although it will take quite a while longer for men’s tights to become mainstream fashion again.