Fabric Definitions — definitions of fabrics, cloths, laces and textile materials from Apparel Search
In textiles, fishnet is a material with an open, diamond-shaped knit. It is most often used for stockings, tights and bodystockings, is available in a multitude of colors though most often sported in traditional matte black, and is commonly worn on the legs and arms by practitioners of goth and punk fashion.
Not to be confused with: fishing net
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Fishnet turns the idea of fabric inside out: the design is the holes. A conventional knit covers the body with a continuous sheet of loops; fishnet spaces its yarns apart and locks them at crossing points, so the finished material is a repeating diamond lattice. That lattice does three practical things at once. It stretches in more than one direction, because the diamonds can shear and elongate before the yarns themselves are strained, which is why fishnet hosiery fits a wide range of legs from one size. It weighs almost nothing and adds texture and pattern without adding warmth or opacity. And it layers — worn over skin, over opaque tights or under torn garments, the same mesh reads differently each time, which is a large part of its fashion usefulness.
Mesh size is the main variable within the material. Fine fishnet, sometimes called micro-net in hosiery, has small diamonds and reads at a distance as a textured, slightly shaded surface; classic fishnet has the familiar mid-size diamonds of stockings and bodystockings; large open meshes are used for tops, overlays and costume pieces where the net itself is the statement. The yarn is usually a synthetic hosiery yarn with elastane in modern production, giving the mesh recovery so the diamonds return to shape after stretching.
Fishnet began and remains centered on legwear — stockings, tights and bodystockings are the garments the definition names, and they are still the material at its most functional: a stocking that is mostly air cannot ladder in quite the way a sheer plain knit does, and the mesh tolerates snags by localizing damage to one diamond rather than running a line up the leg. From hosiery the material spread to sleeves, gloves, tops and overlays, and into the wardrobes of goth and punk fashion, where black fishnet on legs and arms became a durable visual signature rather than a passing trend. In mainstream fashion it returns cyclically as a layering texture — under shorts, jeans with rips, dresses and boots — valued precisely because it adds pattern, edge and coverage-without-covering in a single lightweight layer. Care follows the construction: the open mesh snags on rough surfaces and jewelry, so fishnet garments are washed gently, usually by hand or in a mesh bag, and stored away from hooks and coarse fabrics.
Fishnet is an open fabric whose knit forms a regular grid of diamond-shaped holes. Instead of a continuous surface, the cloth is a net of yarns joined at intervals, so most of the area is open space held in shape by the diamond mesh — the same geometry that gives the material its name and its stretch.
The two share an open-mesh idea but not a purpose or a construction standard. Fishing nets are equipment made to a mesh size and strength for catching or holding, usually in coarse cord; textile fishnet is a fine garment knit in apparel yarns, made to be worn against the body as hosiery and clothing.
Matte black is the traditional and most common color because the dark mesh reads clearly against skin, matches the widest range of outfits, and became the established look in the subcultures — notably goth and punk fashion — that wear fishnet on legs and arms most visibly. The material itself is produced in a multitude of colors.