@Carrie Stuart I keep my hosiery well organized and in original packaging as well. As someone who loves shopping for new hosiery and trying on new hosiery, always looking for that new perfect pair, keeping a well organized collection is vital. And I too often open up the packaging, put my hands through the material for an initial impression (feeling, color) of the hose and fold them up, and put them back as they were. Here is an older post on this forum showing how I keep my hose:
https://www.shapings.com/community/forum/topic/73148/storing-hosiery#post-157084
In fact, I bought that file cabinet just for my hosiery collection because the hosiery packages can be seen (front facing) and sifted through, organized easily. I've added external key latch locks too, to keep prying eyes away if ever we have house guests in my office or I'm self conscious when our house cleaners come.
Sadly, I purged a lot of my collection a couple years ago, but kept the expensive brands and a lot of styles I wear the most so it's just two drawers of hosiery. There was a couple year period recently where I was very busy, and riding my bicyles a lot and neglected to keep my legs shaved, etc etc. Feel like now I'm getting back into wearing now that life seems to have settled down, and frankly I miss it too much other wise.
The other two drawers are filled with bicycle clothing actually. As a daily cyclist, I have practically two complete wardrobes: pedesitran and cyclist... though you could say my hosiery collection would be a third wardrobe, though I do wear hosiery with pedestrian clothes when appropriate, or able to.
So, I'm lacking a bit of reference on styles I've tried, like the Girardi in the past from the purge. I had started a database of my hosiery and review impressions, but it turned out to be more work than I wanted. However, I might restart that, as I'm currently between active employment, after all I am a software engineer by trade (jack of many interests to be honest).
As to microdibre I generally love them. I tend to love matt hosiery the best, but I do like the fit of 3D/micro/nanofibre hosiery. They tend to stay in place, and there are some styles that are silky and glide well. Le Bourget had a delicious 30 denier that was great for instance. Le Bourget Heritage Luxe 30. Again, rare for me to go 30 denier but these were fantastic and I should have snatched up more. Alas, they're no longer made. And like you, I don't wear or prefer black that much. Prefer the nudes or tan to darker skin tones.
Once again @Carrie Stuart your enthusiam for hosiery varieties and advice and experience are next to none and always a pleasure to compare notes. AND yes, I'll keep a detailed record of the Girardi styles. They arrive in a couple days.
