Today’s tights and moccasins combination worked in the same way that dipping a salty french fry into a Wendy’s frosty works: counterintuitively, but wonderfully. I love that he wore them, and that he often does. Go onto @shiasoutfits and you’ll see that every other image of the man involves a pair of thigh-hugging compression tights in a selection of colors. Some of his most famous polyurethane-centric looks have included a glistening fuchsia pair and later a soft purple version also by Nike. It’s bold, and sort of beautiful.
LeBeouf likely doesn’t care about this, but he is completely on-trend with this rather classic look. Back in 2015, Vogue’s Archives Editor Laird Borrelli-Persson did a stellar roundup of men’s tights in history in which she referred to the look as “brosiery.” The slideshow featured ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, David Lee Roth of Van Halen, football player Torrey Smith who wore a pair of colorful tights on the field of a San Francisco 49ers game, and a Jean Paul Gaultier model trotting down the runway in a slick pair of thick black tights. Over Slack, Borrelli-Persson said that tights for men have been having a bit of a comeback in fashion over the past few seasons. And on the runways, Christian Cowan showed a glitzy checked pattern tight for Spring 2021, while Rick Owens offered the style in slinky black for Fall 2020, the same season that Balenciaga sent models in red, blue, and black spandex down the catwalk.
I adore LeBeouf and his love for both black and candy-hued compression tights the same way that I adore Harry Styles’s love for skirts and other men’s sleazy love for pointy toe shoes. It takes a special, confident dude very comfortable with themselves to let their thighs be coddled and defined in a pair of tights—there’s nowhere to hide. And in blinding colors and prints? It’s a beautifully brazen style choice. In other words, don’t fear the grip of spandex, and instead make like Shia and welcome its embrace.