Columnist Muriel Stevens: Charge it, Please!

Like it or loathe it, everybody shops.

So, welcome to my new shopping column, called: Charge it, Please!

My own shopping habits are ecletic. I shop everywhere. No store is too small or too grand to escape my interest, and I'm interested in everything.

Shopping means more than groceries and clothing.

I'll tell you where to find everything from bargains to extravagant items, food to footwear, spices to rices, hideaways to getaways, wines to vines. And if there's something of particular interest to you that you'd like me to write about, let me know.

Everyone has a shopping profile. Mine can't be categorized. I'm a maverick when it comes to shopping and I'm frequently impulsive. My weaknesses are books and magazines, household items, speciality foods and handbags. I wish they were my only weaknesses, but they're not.

I wish there was a Shoppers Anonymous for someone like me, shopping as if I were still doing a national TV cooking show, where 10 of everything is required. And while I may be atypical, my kind of shopping is not uncommon.

What's your shopping profile? Do you shop till you drop, or are you the hit-and-run type who runs into a store, buys the first thing that strikes your fancy and runs out? Or do you buy scads of things -- then return them?

Are you a catalog shopper? Is shopping something done only when a need arises, or is it a favorite form of entertainment? And where do you shop? Do you favor only high fashion shops, or do you get a kick from a "steal" at an outlet mall or factory store? Are you a sales-only shopper, not just for clothes, but for household and other items?

These were just a few of the questions I asked friends and shopkeepers who know well the habits of their clientele. Everyone talked freely, albeit discreetly.

From the research I conducted it's obvious that women still do the bulk of the shopping. For the most part, men are happy to let someone else do their shopping. But they won't be neglected. We'll shop for them, too. It's not as easy getting the men I know to talk about their shopping habits, but they're weakening.

Let's get started

This first column is about women's hose, and it was inspired by a friend who told me she only buys Wolford pantyhose that range in price from $28 to $60. What could possibly make a pair of pantyhose or a pair of stockings worth that much?

Pantyhose can be bought for as little as $1 in any discount store or supermarket. Department stores regularly have sales of designer hose that cost under $10 a pair. Could buying Wolford hose be a status thing? No, said my friend. It's practical. She's been wearing the same three pantyhose for almost two years.

Another friend said her one Wolford purchase is 4 years old!

In Las Vegas, Wolford products are sold at Saks and Neiman Marcus, in the Fashion Show Mall, and at the only all-Wolford Boutique, in the Appian Way at Caesars Palace. Sales people at all the stores were eager to answer my questions and confirm the stories about longevity. One told me that she had a customer who swore she'd had a pair for 15 years. I continued to hear these stories throughout my interviews.

Was this commercial propaganda or fact? Then I met Juliette Thai, senior manager of the Wolford Boutique -- formerly of Christian Dior in New York. Juliette threw more light on the subject when she shared what she knew about the history of hosiery and Wolford.

Hosiery history

Legwear of some kind has existed for a very long time, but it was men who wore them, not women. Imagine, it's the 11th century, with personal hygiene awful at best. The naked feet of women were stuffed into dainty shoes, where they peeked out from under their party dresses.

Centuries later, knitting machines were developed, and by the 19th century, women were showing legs clad in stockings made of silk or cotton. The real breakthrough came about with the development of synthetic yarns. Finally, there was a reasonable substitute for the expensive and increasingly rare silk.

Nylon revolutionized the hosiery industry. Women dreamed of owning nylons. A famous photograph of the day in 1938, when Dupont displayed the first nylons, shows a young woman sitting on the roadside, putting on the nylons she had just purchased.

Enter Wolford

Wolford was on the cutting edge. Founded in Austria in 1949 in the small town of Bregenz, between Lake Constance and the mountains, it is still there. The company is known for the quality of its products and its technology. It must be the tranquil setting that encourages power thinking. Wolford was the first to develop the process for making seamless hose, and most recently, perfected the technique to make sleek, seamless body suits.

Remember the mini skirt? As skirts became shorter and shorter, stockings looked -- well, a bit embarrassing. A new kind of casual comfort was introduced: stockings and panties in one piece -- pantyhose. New colors and textures were soon added and what was meant to be a consumer item became a sexy, eye-catching fashion statement.

Wolford makes some black lace tights that are as seductive as any found in a Victoria's Secret catalog. It's not just by accident that Wolford products have a sensuous side. Putting your hand through one of the samples is like a caress -- a fine selling point.

My focus on Wolford came about after it became obvious that the products were in a class of their own. There are other high-end hose, but none have the longevity credited to Wolford. When I figured out what I normally spend on panty hose per year, it far exceeded what two or three pair of these pantyhose would cost.

I can see that writing a shopping column can be hazardous to the writer's budget. As soon as I start wearing my new hose, I'll begin tracking their longevity --- but that's a column for the future.

Next week, I'll tell you how to return purchases.

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