Pull Your Socks Up.
On a bright summer's day recently I found myself facing a quandary. Choosing a top and trousers to wear wasn't a problem, but my whole outfit was in danger of being derailed by a mis-step: the wrong socks.
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| Portrait of a Young Girl with Tartan Socks William Ewart (c.1816 - after 1863) Photo Credit: Berwick Museum & Art Gallery |
Should it be a pair that matched the rest of my outfit, or with a pattern that stood out? Did a frill look fussy, or bring just the right amount of detail? Was the fact they didn't have a four-letter word on them going to expose me as woefully out of touch? The only thing I was certain of is that they should be on show.
Yes the young and the fashionable have known this for a while but for the rest of us it's taken time to notice the sock's shift to centre stage...
My Guardian colleague Jess Carter-Morley says socks are fashion's "hottest topic of the decade", while Lynne Hugill, senior lecturer for the BA in fashion at Teesside University, says "people of both genders are embracing socks with all kinds of footwear - whether it's flat shoes, a sandal or a heel."...
At M&S, the menswear director Mitch Hughes says there is a "strong appetite for statement socks" among male shoppers. "Socks have had a 2025 glow-up, left behind their functional underdog status and are now attention-seeking and stylish - a key style contender within a man's wardrobe and definitely not an afterthought...
Happy Socks, a sock maker that launched in Stockholm in 2008, "Hey we need socks on our runway. Can we work together?.. That shows the move into the fashion world - if they're on the runway then of course it trickles down."...
Happy Socks makes a huge choice of patterned socks, with this year's designs including tomatoes, hibiscus flowers and racing cars, although Murchison says fewer colours are being used across the range as it moves to be "more fashion relevant"... Murchison says solid colours have sold well. Red was in, but things have moved on and the hot colour is a "really poppy vibrant blue"...
(Hilary Osborne, The Guardian, 2025)
On a bright summer's day recently I found myself facing a quandary. Choosing a top and trousers to wear wasn't a problem, but my whole outfit was in danger of being derailed by a mis-step: the wrong socks.
You're not being serious here are you? There's such a thing as the wrong socks? You are actually having a debate with yourself as to what socks you are going to wear? You spend time thinking about socks?
Should it be a pair that matched the rest of my outfit, or with a pattern that stood out? Did a frill look fussy, or bring just the right amount of detail?
Take the frilly ones. They make the socks look much more attractive and would give me great pleasure to gaze on them.
Was the fact they didn't have a four-letter word on them going to expose me as woefully out of touch?
Yes you really do have a problem if there's no expletive on them. Actually one four letter swear word was "in" last month. This month you need two very dirty words.
Yes the young and the fashionable have known this for a while but for the rest of us it's taken time to notice the sock's shift to centre stage.
How right you are. Many thanks for bringing this to my attention.
My Guardian colleague Jess Carter-Morley says socks are fashion's "hottest topic of the decade", while Lynne Hugill, senior lecturer for the BA in fashion at Teesside University, says "people of both genders are embracing socks with all kinds of footwear - whether it's flat shoes, a sandal or a heel."
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