Meghan Markle’s tights are a metaphor for how far she’ll have to go to fit in

Allow me to save you a trip to the comments section. Yes, there are bigger things happening in the world. There are more important things. There are many more urgent and more sinister things. And there are articles about those big, important, urgent and sinister things awaiting your attention all over this website and the internet.

If you’re still here, we’re going to fly in the face of all those important and urgent matters and discuss the perplexing development that is Meghan Markle’s Little Bo Peep tights. You have been warned.

The newly minted Duchess of Sussex was seen sporting the tights earlier this week at an engagement with Prince Harry, their first official one as a married couple, immediately prompting a flurry of urgent wardrobe analysis, the scale and scope of which was rivalled only by coverage of her wedding dress.

The Firm insists on nude tights at public engagements. It is a rule as unyielding as the ban on coloured nail polish, cleavage and cross body bags

Avid royal watchers will already be aware, of course, that The Firm, as Diana used to call it, insists on nude tights at public engagements. It is a rule as unyielding as the ban on coloured nail polish, cleavage and cross body bags, or the dictats that state two heirs can’t travel together, royal boys wear shorts until the age of eight and royal chins must be parallel to the ground at all times.

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Said avid watchers pronounced themselves mildly troubled when, last year, Markle flouted the tights rule by appearing in her engagement photos with scandalously bare legs.

But now that she is a full member of the family, Markle is obediently getting to grips with the shudderingly sinister phenomenon that is the nude tight, or – as I’ve always preferred to think of them – margarine tights.

First, let’s get this out of the way: if there is a more pointless garment on earth, I’m not aware of it. Nude tights offer no measurable benefit in terms of warmth or cosmetic enhancement. Ladies, now is the time to face up to the unavoidable truth: nude tights are not nude. We can see you’re wearing them, and they are making your legs look like unbarbecued sausages.

The telltale beige wrinkles at the crease of an ankle is possibly the least alluring sight on earth, while the emergence of a big toe wrapped in sheer margarine-hued fabric out the top of an open-toed sandal is enough to make even the strongest stomach heave.

And let’s not even get started on the frankly hideous associated lexicon: “hoisery”, “pantyhose”, “nylon” and – I can barely type the word without going weak at the knees – “gusset”.

Margarine tights may be the most useless product foisted by industrialised society on women – and there’s intense competition in this category, including lady razors, Bic for girls and “women’s gentle laxatives”.

They are sweaty, impractical and if you have nails and try to go to the bathroom while wearing them, virtually guaranteed to ladder.

Of course, royals wear nude tights for the same archaic reason they avoid cross-body bags: for the avoidance of eliciting male excitement. And also because the lady setting the rules is in her 90s, and not exactly down with the kids when it comes to making on point fashion choices.

The tights did sort of match her equally uninspiring dress, but the effect on Markle's beautiful biracial skin tone was unsettling

But Markle is a Cali girl at heart, and Cali girls don’t wear nude tights unless they’re trying out for the cheer squad, which is the American equivalent of taking part in a feis ceoil. In other words, the normal rules don’t apply.

Anyway, none of that is the reason why Markle’s foray into monarch-approved nude hosiery (bleurgh) is raising eyebrows today.

The issue is that while Markle’s tights might have been flesh-coloured, they weren’t the colour of her flesh. Rather, they were communion-tights white. There were Little Bo Peep tights.

Yes, the tights did sort of match her equally uninspiring dress, but the effect on Markle’s beautiful biracial skin tone was unsettling.

Her legs stuck out from underneath her frock like a pair of stark metaphors for the lengths to which she will be forced to go to try and blend in with what is Britain most famous, most dysfunctional family, a family famous for chewing up and projectile vomiting out its female members.

Yes, they're only tights, a flimsy piece of seven-denier nothingness. But they were also a sign that the Windsorisation of Meghan Markle has begun. And so far, it's not a pretty sight.