The one thing worth knowing before you buy black leggings is that not all black is equal. A lot of them fade to a flat, slightly purplish grey after a handful of washes, and that's the moment they stop looking like leggings and start looking like something you wear only to the bin and back. Check the fabric content before anything else. A decent amount of elastane in the mix is what keeps the colour and the shape intact past October.
Proper black, the kind that still looks like black in daylight, tends to come from a denser weave rather than a thin jersey that was dyed and hoping for the best. That density matters for more than colour too, because it's what stops the fabric going see through the second you bend over to pick something up off the floor, which is a genuinely common failure and not a dramatic one, I've seen it happen to someone reaching for a dropped phone in broad daylight. On the pairing front, black leggings are quietly the easiest thing in any wardrobe to build around, which is exactly why they get worn into the ground. An oversized jumper and boots in the colder months, a longline t shirt and trainers when it warms up, a proper coat over the top when you need to look like you tried without actually trying. They work under dresses in winter too, which nobody tells you until you've already bought three pairs of thermal tights that don't do the job half as well. Where they struggle is high summer, obviously, unless you find a lighter weight pair meant for it, because the dense ones that hold their shape are also the ones that trap heat.
The difference between a good pair and a disappointing one usually comes down to the waistband and the seams rather than anything flashy. A waistband that sits flat and doesn't roll down by lunchtime, flat seams rather than ones that dig in on the inner thigh after an hour of walking, and a hem that doesn't start curling up after the first wash. Cheap ones often look identical to good ones on the hanger, which is the whole problem, you can't always tell until you've sat down in them a few times and stood back up. Hold them up to the light in the shop if you can, that's usually the quickest tell for whether you'll be able to bend over in them without incident.
Would I still want these after six months of washing, or just after the first one?
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