Humans love patterns, its how we learn and how we understand our world. It's how we can tell the difference between the cereal and the bowl, between the lingerie and the lolcat. But so many stockings are simply sheer stretches of nylon mesh, which, whilst being fairly nice and all, are hardly interesting from a visual point of view.

If you happen to be a man of discriminating tastes who enjoys discovering innovative lingerie, you'll be glad you clicked across this article, for here I have compiled some sweet specimens of pattered stockings just perfect for the male wearer.

We start off with some lovely traditional stockings covered in roses. Floral motifs have always been associated with the feminine element of the human condition, which explains their popularity amongst men who wear lingerie and other women's things. These stockings combine the allure of the fishnet with the delicate femininity of the rose and in doing so create a message of sweet, sexy contrast.

Now, these floral stockings are something to write home about. The sheer opaque design makes the stockings themselves almost invisible, which means all anyone will see are the sweet flowers trailing up your leg, and trail and dance they do! With larger florets lower down around your ankles and thighs, the higher one goes, the smaller and wispier the little flowers become. You'll be enjoying the innovative look and feel of these stockings for a long time to come.

As you will no doubt have noted by now, all these stockings are Leg Avenue brand, which can be found at most online lingerie retailers and are also often available in stores, depending on where you are and what store you're in. If you happen to be in a pet food store in outer Mongolia, there's a possibility that Leg Avenue products won't be available there, but there's a certainty that you'd look good wearing your patterned stockings there. A mathematical certainty, plus or minus one scale denier division.

Again with the Leg Avenue! (Who seem to have a delightful knack for creating patterned stockings.) Here we have stockings which are indubitably a symphony in geometry. Large diamonds make their way blockily up the outside of the wearer's thigh, denoting him as a man capable of arranging squares of all kinds into pleasing patterns.

These cute orange fishnet stockings (also from Leg Avenue) boast little spiders crawling up the black backseam. You're not afraid of spiders, are you? Well you certainly won't be after you spend some time enjoying these saucy stay up stockings.