Are Your Socks Showing Your Age?
My trauma around socks haunts me every morning. In the late ’90s, one of the rules of teenage life was that it was absolutely unacceptable – laughable – to visibly wear socks. You had to roll them down under the arch of your foot. You’d rather get a blister that went to the bone than let friends see that you wore socks.
Why? Why anything? Fashion is a fickle and irrational mistress – especially when you’re 15 – and, sometimes, something just starts to look very right or very wrong. In fear of getting picked on, I stuck with small socks permanently, graduating from hiding them inside my shoes to buying trainer socks (aka secret socks), which leave the ankle bare. Now I’m 41. If the weather is very cold, I might wear a longer sock to bridge the gap from shoe to trouser, but always in unobtrusive black or grey.
I’m not the only one harbouring hosiery panic. I recently saw a friend who apologised for the white socks he was wearing with black shoes. He’d been to the gym before our dinner and forgotten to pack a second pair. “Disaster,” he said. “I’d have been beaten up for this at school.” Like me, he is 41.
Another friend is reeling from a conversation overheard in a gym changing room. “I heard a girl say, ‘Oh my god, you can’t even see my socks. How embarrassing!’” She pauses. “I’ve always been under the impression that seeing socks was uncool, so I was wearing trainer socks. I just left the changing room, dead.”
Lately, for millennials like us, up is down and left is right. People under 30 see socks as a fabulous part of an outfit and like them to reach a prominent position between ankle bone and mid-calf. Grazia’s own soxpert, senior fashion news editor Natalie Hammond (Grazia UK), says, “Spring belonged to the red sock. However, it’s very much a white sock summer.” She’s not wrong: Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, Emma Corrin, Olivia Rodrigo and Simone Ashley are all fans. The look is a bit schoolgirl, ironically. But the good news for my pal is that it’s not just for women: at the Gucci menswear show last month, Paul Mescal’s white socks covered as much surface area as his shorts.
“I would say that the sockscape is about ankle-length at the moment, above the ankle, not below,” continues Natalie. “It’s harder than you might think, however, to find some that cut the mustard. I only have two pairs that properly meet my criteria, which are both from Pilgrim Surf + Supply.” Asking around, I hear recommendations too for Muji, Uniqlo and The T-Store. Even after her tutorial, I’m hesitant to jump in with both feet. Thin white ankle socks still look like they might get me beaten up at 3pm. I can just about cope with a solid, coloured sock – try Colorful Standard – or a thick white sports sock, which you can get with a jaunty stripe at Uniqlo. If you see me wearing them, however, please remember that laughter can be triggering.
