When it comes to tall women clothing, we can hardly talk about shoes without thinking about what we wear under the shoes.

Sometimes, for one reason for another, some form of hosiery—socks, stockings, pantyhose, tights—are in order.

We can fake it with socks if we have to. For the most part—assuming we’ve already found pants long enough for our tall women legs—no one is going to see our socks and pick over whether they’re anklets or knee-highs. But sometimes, occasion demands we wear hose—or tights, as the Brits would say—and that’s where it once again becomes a challenge for us tall women.

Anyone who can decipher a size chart for pantyhose should be working for NASA. Looking at such a chart, I must go across to get my height, then look down to find my weight (I don’t cheat on that, honest), and the two are supposed to meet up (and you can never put enough emphasis on SUPPOSED) in a jagged arrangement of blocks in a single color stamped with a letter. That letter is—here we go again—SUPPOSED to be my perfect fit.

I take my purchase home, where I tear open the package or peel apart the pouch or crack open the egg, only to pull out something that looks as if it wouldn’t even fit my daughter’s Barbie doll.

But they’re supposed to stretch out as I put them on. This they do until I pull them past my knees, then I have to make a choice: I can either wear them with the crotch suspended just above my knees, or I can keep tugging till they rip and run and split—which usually happens about mid-thigh.

The size charts are never right. I really need queen size (though what most of us REALLY need is something along the lines of “Super Long Extra Plus Amazon Empress.”) But when I do find it, it’s usually only available in one or two dreary colors.

And sometimes, especially for dressy occasions, patterned hose can be fun to wear. But you can only pull and stretch fishnet so far till it won’t catch anything but a whale.

Don’t even get me started on thigh high stockings that turn out to be nothing more than knee highs, and how garters are never long enough to reach them unless you don’t mind a little twanging.

Once again, I went online in search of hose at tall women clothing sites. Funny, you’d think any store with “Legs” in its name would include hosiery in its inventory, but I couldn’t find that to be the case.

Long Tall Sally sells regular hose for tall women, along with a good selection of leggings in floral prints, faux lace, and even a shiny wet look. They come in sizes Small, Medium or Large, though in studying their size charts, I couldn’t figure out how these sizes translated to one’s height or the length of one’s legs.

Roamans.com Plus Size Clothing, fashion for plus size women, has a great selection of pantyhose both plain and patterned, as well as knee highs that go up to our knees instead of our ankles, and thigh high stockings that reach our thighs (no more buying those just because we can’t find any knee highs that fit)! But they hide this selection, as it isn’t prominently featured in any navbars. Instead I had to scroll to the bottom of the home page to a seemingly endless list in fine print of links to Plus Size This and Plus Size That till I found Plus Size Hosiery & Socks. (Of course NO specific tall women clothing, where we're talking more about length than say, GIRTH.)

But as they seem to have Plus Size Everything, I think it’s worth the trouble.

Finally, here’s a hint to double the life of pantyhose: If you have a pair with a run (or ladder) in one leg, take a pair of scissors, cut off that leg wear it meets the panty and discard it. Save the panty with the remaining good leg. When you get a second pair of pantyhose with a run/ladder in one leg, cut that one off and toss it, too. Now, bring your two “one-legged” pantyhose together and put them on, one panty over the other, so that each leg covers one of your own legs. When you take them off, do it as one pair of pantyhose and they’ll stay that way.

It’s almost like a free pair of pantyhose—plus you have double the protection in the panty part.

What are your rants or hints about hosiery? Or tall women clothes in general? Let’s make some noise and fight for our rights to extra long tights!

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