Object of Desire: Wolford Velvet de Luxe 66 opaque tights

Sure these tights are expensive and seemingly impossible to justify when so many places sell perfectly acceptable black opaque tights.

But here's the thing: these tights transcend 'acceptable'. Each Christmas my mother gives me one brown pair and one black pair and, even though I wore tights pretty much every day until the end of March this year, I still have 2008's Christmas pairs sealed in their packets. That's because the ones from the year before, and the year before that were still going strong. No ladders, no snags, no imperfections.

They are incredible soft & stretchy, warm, and a true unfading deep velvet-y black with not a hint of skin tone showing through as happens with cheaper opaques. I do also have the M&S version and they are very good but they just aren't in the same league.

I don't look after my Wolfords especially well: they are bunged in a 40 degree wash with all my other dark coloured stuff, rather than hand-washed as recommended. And, unless an infant attacks them with scissors, or I accidentally fall into a mowing machine, I guess I'll be wearing them until the waistband perishes.

Believe me, these tights are bulletproof.

UK: £18 from Wolford US: $42 from Bergdorf Goodman

See other Objects of Desire here