Inquiry about use of white tights + common colors of tights in ballet classes

[Ray Boucher]

Hi! I've been involved in ballet for close to 5 years now, and one thing I've always wondered about recently was the matter of the usage of specific colors of ballet tights.

I am a male ballet student and dancer, and in my first two years of ballet classes and lessons, I wore long black pants with matching socks and ballet or jazz shoes - this carried over to many of my past performances as well. As I got older, I became fascinated with wearing tights and now I have several pairs of ballet tights in a few different colors - though I mainly wore blue with white socks and black shoes in recent performances. In my current ballet classes I tend to alternate between a black pair and a blue pair of footless tights/leggings (each color is a separate pair, fyi) with white socks and black ballet shoes. At home however, I tend to experiment with different ballet get-ups. The other tights I wear include:

- A black convertible pair with black shoes.

- A white footed pair (no hole on the bottom) plus one of two extra white convertible kinds with white shoes (which I haven't worn for performances so far).

- A grey convertible pair that I haven't worn as many times, with black shoes sometimes (I don't have grey shoes).

Whenever I'm in ballet class, I tend to notice that older male students tend to wear more black and grey tights (one of the older men in my classes wears white socks and black shoes over his tights, like I do, whereas the other man wears black footed/convertible tights with black shoes). From my experience watching videos of ballet, I see that men tend to wear white tights moreso during actual ballet performances, if the costume design demands it. Is this accurate/true for other ballet companies as well? Has anyone ever seen males wearing white tights in class, and what would you imagine/what are others' reactions to it would be?

Edited October 23, 2022 by Ray Boucher

[Ray Boucher]

Note: For clarification, my family has no qualms with me wearing tights at home for comfort; my parents are very accepting of it and I'm grateful for that. Also I generally try to be very careful with what I wear in public, I only wear tights at home and in ballet class and I always ask what the dress code is and what is acceptable to wear in class before choosing what to wear. I was just generally curious about what other people's observations/thoughts were on the subject matter.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Ray Boucher

[Helene]

We're an audience site, but Ballet Talk for Dancers would be the place to raise questions about how appropriate dress for class is determined, because there are different mores and sometimes rules everywhere.

https://dancers.invisionzone.com/

[Ray Boucher]

Thanks for letting me know. Sorry I wasn't aware of that beforehand.