Emilio Cavallini

If you want hosiery that works as a statement, they make a strong case. Cavallini's whole life's work has been dressing women's legs with patterned hosiery, from dots and stars to skulls, stripes, animal prints and fishnets in fluorescent colours. You are buying legwear as a graphic centrepiece rather than a basic, so the value sits in how much you want the pattern to do the talking.

Patterned hosiery, full stop. He is an Italian fashion designer particularly noted for his hosiery collections, and his signature is pantyhose in bold black-and-white patterns, polka dots, stars, skulls, stripes, animal prints and fishnets, often in fluorescent colour. When people think Cavallini, they think expressive, art-driven tights.

An Italian fashion designer born in 1945, best known for hosiery. He briefly studied economics in Florence from 1964 to 1966 before quitting, drawn to the world of fashion, and headed to Swinging London. There he met Mary Quant, his passion for hosiery began, and he started dressing women's legs with patterned designs.

It traces back to London and Mary Quant. After meeting Quant, Cavallini's passion for hosiery took off and he began developing patterned pantyhose. In 1970 he opened his own company, Stilnovo Spa, in San Miniato, and in 1980 he launched his own Emilio Cavallini hosiery brand, which was an immediate success.

In Italy. Cavallini opened his company Stilnovo Spa in San Miniato in 1970, and by 2009 Stilnovo S.p.A. was producing four million fashion tights per year and selling worldwide. That long-running Italian manufacturing base is part of the brand's identity and its reputation for technically inventive legwear.

Yes, which says a lot about the technical reputation. Besides Mary Quant, Cavallini's company has produced for some of the most important brands, including Dior, Celine, Roberta di Camerino, Balenciaga, Gucci and Alexander McQueen. So when you buy his own-brand tights, you are buying from a maker trusted by the top of the industry.

He expanded well beyond hosiery after launching his own brand in 1980, going on to design shoes, leather accessories, bathing suits and a full avant-garde clothing line for young men and women. He also pioneered seamless, full-body knitwear made on machines originally built for hosiery, so his world is really about innovative knit construction overall.

Because that is genuinely how he works. Cavallini nourishes a passion for current and ancient art and builds art pieces of various forms and dimensions using tights as if they were strings, applying his mathematical knowledge to work out the tensions of the yarns. That experimental, sculptural mindset is why his patterns feel so deliberate.

Very much so. He became a member of the Milan Chamber of Fashion, and Italy honoured him repeatedly: he was made "Cavaliere del lavoro" in 1986 and "Commendatore" in 1993, and he won the "Leone d'oro" prize for fashion in Venice in 1989. Those national honours reflect a long, serious career, not a novelty brand.

Let the legwear be the focal point. The designs run from polka dots and stripes to skulls, animal prints and bold fishnets, often in fluorescent shades, so they are meant to be noticed. Keep the rest of the outfit relatively simple so a graphic pair reads as the deliberate statement Cavallini intends, rather than competing with everything else.