Common shortcuts

‘Ultra-sheer 30D’, ‘0D bare-leg look’ and ‘20D is obviously thicker than 15D’ all mix up two different ideas. To describe hosiery properly, answer at least six questions: colour · denier/opacity · length/type · finish · knit or pattern · details such as the top band, back seam and heel. Know Your Hosiery takes one variable a day. Today: the one most often written incorrectly — D.

What denier is

Denier is a yarn-fineness unit: the weight in grams of 9,000 metres of yarn. Lower number, finer yarn.

Denier is therefore a yarn specification, not ‘how sheer it looks’. The visible result also depends on colour, fibre, knit and light. There is no ‘0D’: if there is yarn, the denier is above zero.

HosieryLab’s six opacity bands

These are our default bands, not an industry standard:

  • ≤10D ultra sheer · ultra_sheer
  • 11–20D sheer · sheer
  • 21–35D semi-sheer · semi_sheer
  • 36–59D semi-opaque · semi_opaque
  • 60–99D opaque · opaque
  • ≥100D heavy opaque · heavy_opaque

A photo without a label gives you a range

A photograph cannot give a precise number. Check three places:

  1. Front of the shin: skin clearly visible usually means ≤20D; skin blurred, about 21–35D; only the knee showing through, about 36–59D; no skin at all, ≥60D.
  2. The contrast between the edges of the leg and the centre: strongest between roughly 15 and 40D.
  3. A bent knee, where the fabric stretches most: a clearly brighter patch usually means ≤40D.

Write the result as ‘about 20D (est.)’, never as if it came from a label.

Browse by band

These counts are the 10/11 catalog snapshot:

Above 60D there are four steps so far (60 / 80 / 100 / 120D), with only 37–38 records each, all from the new HL-C batch. It is still a thin sample.

The denier on a label is a yarn specification. The denier in a photograph is an estimated range, and writing ‘est.’ next to it is what keeps the description honest.