On a recent sweltering day, Charella Marx donned a smart red dress and matching sandals for work.

Sure, it was a mid-week workday, but the thought of squeezing into pantyhose? It didn't even cross her mind.

"It's plain hot, and it's just another layer of clothing that you have to put on," Marx, a 55-year-old Edgewater real estate agent, said while shopping at Nordstrom in Annapolis on her lunch break. "Once it gets hot, I don't wear them. Even in air-conditioning it's uncomfortable. I don't see any redeeming social value in pantyhose."

There was a time when the bare-legged Marx would have flabbergasted civil society. Today, however, stepping out of the house sans nylons in spring and summer isn't audacious -- it's simply the norm.

With casual wear now common in workplaces across the country and dressing up becoming less of a necessity in most social situations, American women have collectively been unshackling themselves from the confines of the often itchy, uncomfy and oh-so-tight sausage casings otherwise known as nylons.

Pantyhose, it seems, are dead.

"Being in that industry is like being a bustle manufacturer at the turn of the century," said David Wolfe, creative director with the Doneger Group, a New York retail trend consulting company. "They're making a product that most consumers no longer find an everyday necessity. Ladies used to always wear hose -- but ladies also always used to wear gloves and hats.

"Times change," he added. "We've relaxed all the rules about grooming. You can walk around with dirty hair, which most women do today. You can walk around looking wrinkled, and you can wear beachwear to the office."

And the hosiery industry has been suffering. In 1991, American women spent $2.7 billion on hosiery, according to a 2001 report by the Hosiery Association, a national trade group based in Charlotte, N.C. Last year, nationwide sales were down to $1.51 billion.

Women first began leaving their hose at home en masse in the mid-1990s, when casual wear became accepted at work. In fashion, however, bare legs didn't get anointed as the Next Big Thing until about three years ago, when designers began trotting out models on runways without pantyhose.

"Women should be very grateful to the cutting-edge stylists who first took them off models," Wolfe said. "They liberated women the same way designers way back liberated them from corsets."

The popularity of shoes like mules and sandals in recent years also has dealt a blow to hosiery.

"If you want to wear open-toe slides, it's very difficult to wear pantyhose and still keep your shoes on," said Deborah Rudinsky, Doneger Group's merchandise manager who tracks accessories trends. "And most women want to wear these shoes."

Rudinsky noted that for decades, most department stores located their hosiery departments on the main floor. But within the past two to three years, many have begun removing the hosiery departments from those prime spots. Today, nylons also are a rarity on runways unless they are novelty hosiery like the fishnets that dominated fashion last year. And many women have planned their outfits accordingly.

"I have so many pairs of pantyhose in every color," said Sasha Charnin Morrison, fashion market director for Allure magazine. "And they're all just kind of sitting in my drawer like neglected children."

Toni Snyder, a 20-year-old retail manager, said neither she nor most of her twentysomething friends wear pantyhose.

"Even during winter I'll wear tights or lots of pants but not hose," said Snyder, who lives in Pasadena. "I've just never liked it. They're uncomfortable, and half the time they're falling down and you have to keep hiking them up."

Women like Snyder have scared the hosiery industry into evolving.

"There has been a decrease in sales, but the rate of decrease is slowing down," said Sally Kay, president of the Hosiery Association. "The industry has been coming up with new products to address what consumers really want and need."

Recent innovations that women have been snapping up at stores include toeless and footless hose and body-shaping nylons that end at the knee or below.

At Nordstrom stores across the country, one of the hottest products in hosiery is the new Spanx brand footless pantyhose, which cost $20 and come with an adjustable leg band that falls anywhere between the knee and ankle. Women have been buying them to wear under clam-diggers, pants or long skirts. This product gives them body-contouring support while allowing them to wear summer skirts or pants with sandals that show off pedicures.

"When we show it to customers, they've been like, 'Wow. Thank goodness somebody thought of something that I really need,'" said Lisa Phipps, Nordstrom's national hosiery buyer. "Then they'll go out and tell their friends all about it."

In fact, Spanx has sold so well at Nordstrom and other stores that creator Sara Blakely went from peddling them in the backroom of her rented duplex in Atlanta to more than $2 million in sales within the first year of launching her business in 2000. A month ago, she launched a new product that took her footless nylons one step further -- $25 power panties, which are like a combination shaper, underwear and hose. Women can wear these under dresses or short skirts.

Blakely said most of her customers don't think of Spanx footless nylons and power panties as pantyhose, though.

"Most of our customers think of this as replacing their underwear," she said. "This is their new undergarment."

And if these new products don't manage to resuscitate the industry, perhaps women like Snyder's mother will help.

"My mom yells at me when I don't wear pantyhose," said Snyder, who was shopping in Annapolis with her mother, Joann. "She always says, 'You're not dressed unless you wear pantyhose.' "

"And," Joann Snyder added, "you never go out without a slip on."

But that's another story.

Bare-legged tips

If you're going to leave your hose at home, you'll have to make sure your legs are adequately prepped for public viewing. Sasha Charnin Morrison, fashion market director at Allure magazine, offered some tips for avoiding a footsie faux pas.

* Make sure your legs have been exfoliated and waxed or shaved. After months of cold weather gnawing at your skin, chances are your legs aren't in flash-worthy condition. "Scaly legs are not a pretty look," Charnin Morrison said.

* Get a good pedicure. After all, what's the point of wearing sandals if your toes aren't enticing?

* Slather on a self-tanner to give your sun-starved limbs some color.

* If you have spider veins, scars or any tattoos that make you feel self-conscious, try using a concealer. There are some new products -- like Dermablend's leg and body cover creme -- that have been developed specifically for this.