Saturday 18 October 2014

Hosiery For Men goes blog hopping

I was recently asked to take part in a Blog Hop by a lovely fashion writer called Linda Hobden who writes a blog called Boots, Shoes & Fashion.





Linda is a reader of Hosiery For Men, and she nominated me and author Carol E Wyer to take up the challenge.

To take part we both had to agree to be nominated in Linda's Doing The Blog Hop post, and then answer four questions before passing on the baton to other bloggers.


You can read Carol's contribution on her brilliant Facing 50 With Humour blog.



So here goes.

1. What am I working on?

I always have a backlog of hosiery reviews to complete. Since I started the Hosiery For Men blog in 2011 retailers and hosiery manufacturers have been incredibly generous sending me samples. So I always have a lot of new tights to trial and review. Coming up soon are reviews of the new Falke Pure Shine 80 Tights send to me by a great hosiery store in the north-east called Tights Tights Tights.

I also have two reviews on the way for the tights made specifically for men by Comfort4Men, who are based in Germany.

I am also planning to feature in more detail a brand of tights for men from Japan called SmooFit tights. I have already reviewed their 80 Denier men's Tights model and the company that make them, Naigai, have now sent me a enormous box with their whole of their range for me to trial and evaluate. They want to use my reviews on their publicity for their products in Japan!

2. How does my work differ from others in this genre?

Well I am probably one of the very few male hosiery bloggers in the world. Many people might be surprised about a guy writing about tights, although most people are aware that men invented them and they only really became mainstream legwear for women in the twentieth century.

The blog I write also focuses on tights as practical and comfortable clothing for men. It's clearly a growing trends with many designers, as can be seen on the Men Wearing Tights With Shorts blog.

Tights are much more comfortable than traditional, bulky long johns. There is a huge range of styles, the quality gets better and better, and they can be worn stealthily under trousers, or styled with shorts.

There are several women fashion bloggers who review tights as well, but Hosiery For Men is pretty unique. I do also have loads of women readers which is great, and they tell me they find the reviews useful.

3. Why do I write what I do?

I really enjoy writing the blog. If I hadn't started it I would never have realised that there are so many excellent hosiery brands or had the opportunity to try so many styles.

Through writing the blog I have also made a lot of friends, both in the UK hosiery industry, but also people from the USA, Singapore, Turkey and elsewhere.

I also write because I believe in equality in fashion, and that people should be free to wear what they like. I had a great comment from a woman reader who said that she finds tights so comfortable and warm that she couldn't imagine why men wouldn't want to wear them also.

4. How does my writing process work?

When I review new tights I usually wear them at least once, and usually for at least a day, sometimes longer, to get a proper idea of how well they wear. I usually make some notes and then these get written up later for the published review.

For the features I write, I usually interview people by email and build the feature from their answers.

Thank you Linda for nominating me to take part in the blog hop. I am now passing the baton on to Andreas Lucius, who writes a great blog called Legwear Fashion For Men.



I look forward to reading his blog hop soon.

4 comments:

  1. Great post and thank you for mentioning me. I'm blown away by all the wonderful garments you review and how large the market for male hosiery is. I adore Falke tights. They are super quality. I'm going to get some for Mr G so he stops moaning about the cold weather and being frozen. It's about time he got with the times.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You'd be surprised about the amount of men out there that are slowly becoming more and more open about this. Myself, being one of them (I've talked about the main brands that I wear on my blog/vlog). I've been nominated for bloghop as well and once I find a spare moment, will post it!

      http://speedkingrva.blogspot.com

      Delete
  2. Thanks for the feedback Carol. Glad you like Falke tights also. For Mr G I recommend their Pure Matt 100 opaque tights. They will keep out the chills, I promise!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm a guy who's wife got me into wearing tights in place of long johns when we go skiing. She wears them for warmth as an undergarment layer and suggested I did too when I was complaining about my thermal layer getting wet, bunching up and providing zero support by mid afternoon. I found tights lighter to wear, give a greater freedom of movement, they don't bunch up, they're warm when I'm cold and cool when I'm hot and just as importantly they don't lose their flexibility after a couple of hours wear so stay supportive.

    I now pretty much wear them as underwear all the time and wished I'd discovered them years ago, they are so superior to boxers or briefs in every way and are much more cost effective.

    ReplyDelete