It is a Tuesday afternoon and it seems there might be rain. In one of a motley collection of industrial units beside Hibernian’s football stad-ium in Easter Road, two young women check pairs of printed tights and seal them in plastic bags. Within a year of the two designers leaving college, their company, Bebaroque, has shaken up the stuffy world of hosiery with divinely decadent, hand-embellished tights.

The setting may not seem to match up to the team’s newly won title — Scottish Accessory Designers of the Year — but in Bebaroque world, no activity, even packing stock, is incompatible with allure. Chloe Patience, 26, wears a hefty wedge of eyeliner, a wild pink pencil skirt and a pair of bestsellers: tattoo-patterned tights. Mhairi McNicol, 24, wears a blue miniskirt and black opaques with a golden printed pattern, knotted cord and black jewels. “Look at me!” says McNicol. “I’m so dressed up to go to work and most of the time it’s just me and you!”

Patience, from Edinburgh, and McNicol, from Dunfermline, met in Glasgow, studying textile design at the city’s famous School of Art. They sat together in class, shared a flat and always said they should do something together. Patience went to Edinburgh to do her masters, while McNicol stayed in Glasgow to do hers, and, despite being 50 miles apart, they both found themselves drawn to tights.

“I think if you’re a textile designer it’s natural to want to experiment with different weights of fabric,” says McNicol. “I was doing a collection with heavy wool and the tights were a light contrast.” Patience was looking at vintage tattoos, making trompe l’oeil bodysuits to give the impression of an all-over body pattern. Turning that idea into a pair of tights was an obvious next step — Patience began selling her printed tights in the Edinburgh boutique Totty Rocks.

The orders kept coming in. Meanwhile, McNicol had secured a grant from Nesta, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, to develop her hosiery business. When Patience phoned and pleaded for help to keep up with Totty Rocks’ demand, it was obvious that they should join forces.

For their first winter collection, Patience concentrated on elaborate prints — the tattoos, of course, tumbling Aubrey Beardsley feathers, wild leg-climbing peacocks — while McNicol was in charge of embroidery and embellishment. Their summer tights, which are lighter and more sheer, are less able to support extra decoration, so they have both worked on printed designs. McNicol also produces pearl-studded bridal stockings. Patience said: “I would never have come up with them. Mhairi is much more patient than me. We are hoping we don’t sell too many. They take ages to make.”

Patience admits she spent two days of the Christmas holidays on the prototype, stitching while watching films on television.

This is not going to make their fortunes and both women realise that to take their business to the next stage, they have to refine their production process. At the moment it takes two people with two degrees each to make one pair of tights.

“At the beginning, we thought everything we did had to be really worked into. Everything had to be OTT. We have got to learn to design in a way that looks elaborate but is more straightforward to produce. And we also have to remember that the simple ones, with just a fringe or a ruffle on the ankle, really sell.”

Stage one of this process, to find a screenprinter who is meticulous enough to meet their standards, and who is willing to print giant peacocks onto tights, is under way. They are also about to move around the corner to a larger, smarter unit, which will have an office-cum-showroom at the front and plenty of room for production and storage at the back.

This is a crunch time for many small fashion businesses, but Bebaroque has a great advantage — a unique, memorable product. Vogue rang up and demanded a pair of customised snake tights, to be made overnight, for a shoot in New York. Totty Rocks continues to sell large quantities of tattoo tights, and niche fashion stores such as Che Camille, in Glasgow, stock the brand. In London, they can be found in such famously louche underwear boutiques as Miss Lala’s Boudoir.

Not all customers are welcome. At the Harrogate Lingerie and Swimwear Exhibition, a married couple in matching leather suits were taken with the Bebaroque products and placed a large order. Back in their hotel, the women Googled their company. The couple owned a fetish shop. The order was cancelled. “We are all for erotic chic,” says Patience. “But not a blatant over-18s shop.”

Since becoming hosiery moguls, both women report that their personal style has changed. It’s all about the tights, and the bigger the night out, the more amazing the legs have to be. For the Scottish Fashion Awards party at Stirling Castle, they agreed to wear plain black one-shoulder dresses, to show off the tights to their fullest advantage. “We looked a bit like conjoined twins,” says Patience.

Jeans do not figure in their wardrobes, although they will admit to getting home, wriggling out of their pencil skirts, peeling the Swarovski crystals off their legs and slipping into joggers. Luxury has its limits.

www.bebaroque.com

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