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Jacob GallagherThe Wall Street Journal
- Biography
- @jacobwgallagher
- jacob.gallagher@wsj.com
Once, socks were just socks. They kept elements out and smells in (one hoped). Then, in the early 2000s, came the “fun sock.” Striped in rainbow shades or covered in funny little monkeys, cutesy hosiery flared like a beacon of levity in the small, dull space between boring suit pants and boring dress shoes—expressing a soupcon of wit that said of their owner, “See, I’m not just some cubicle-bound square!” Then they wore out their welcome. Of late, sensible publications (including this one) have warned men that fun socks have become much as fun as an office Christmas party sans open bar, but monkeys and overripe stripes continue to wrap their way around ankles worldwide.
More recently, the “look at me!” sock trend has mutated, moving beyond the cubicle and onto the runway. While the fun sock is an affordable bit of whimsy, we’re now witnessing next-level versions that are as logo-laden and often, as expensive as a designer t-shirt. Perhaps you’ve spotted Gucci’s garish double-G-covered socks at your local department store, or seen a photo of Cleveland Cavaliers center Tristan Thompson wearing ankle-highs with “Vetements” stitched large across the top. These are known as “fashion socks.”
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They range from relatively discreet logo socks—made by brands like Supreme, Gosha Rubchinskiy and Versace—to Prada’s futuristic socks ($210) with jacquard stitched panels or Off-White’s designs ($95) with diagonal slashes streaming down the side.
Truly extreme are the full-print hosiery created by eight-year-old label Stance with images of Chewbacca or Rihanna running from toe to calf. Tribalism has become a crucial factor in fashion today. Are you Team Gucci? Team Vetements? Or even, yes, team RiRi? This higher-voltage hosiery screams out, “Hey, I’m part of the team! I get it!”
“I think you could argue,” said Stance’s CEO Jeff Kearl of the ankle, “that it was the last 3 inches of the human body that were unbranded.”
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You might think extravagant statement socks are silly when a serviceable six-pack of black Hanes socks costs $12, but the loud sock business is a serious one. A-Cold-Wall, a three-year-old London label, has made socks a cornerstone of its collections, using them as bait to entice new customers. “On average, you’re looking at $1.98” to produce a jacquard logo sock, explained the brand’s designer, Sam Ross, “so by the time you’re flipping that for $40 you’ve made a serious margin on it.”
Some argue that $40 socks offer advantages to the guy buying them, too. “It’s an easy way to dip your toe into a particularly hot brand or label, but it’s not going whole hog and buying a jacket,” said Jian Deleon, the editorial director of HighSnobiety, a clothing website focused on the intersection of street and high fashion. Mr. Deleon himself has invested in logo socks from Vetements, London label Palace and Berlin’s 032c. If you’re a finger-on-the-pulse sort who’s intrigued by a nascent label like A-Cold-Wall, but can’t afford one of its hoodies ($305) or raincoats ($590), socks are a low-cost, high-impact way to show that you’re with it.
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Justin Machus, the owner of Machus, a boutique in Portland that sells patterned socks from capital-F fashion designers like Rick Owens and Gosha Rubchinskiy, sees them as a way to “get a little bit of interest down towards your shoes.”
Of course, socks are only high-impact if you adhere to the trend for trousers short enough to reveal them. Since Thom Browne proposed the shrunken suit in the early 2000s, pant hems have continuously crept up and up. From roughly 2004 to 2015, while your “quirky” coworker was sporting his fun socks, a more risque move was simply to eschew socks altogether. Flashing a bit of bare ankle—or too much, if you were wearing a regrettable pair of manpris—showed that you were in the know, or at least that you had an active GQ subscription.
In recent years, sneakers have eclipsed brogues and monk straps, however, and going sockless in a pair of cloth-lined Air Force Ones is madness. As sneakers pushed the limits, with Louis Vuitton and Prada dreaming up fantastical, candy-colored trainers to compete with
Nike
and Adidas, high-fashion brands saw an opportunity: Why shouldn’t socks be equally flavorful? Suddenly, for sneakerheads, it wasn’t enough to have the Prada sneakers, you also had to have the Prada socks to go with them. “It’s a sort of obsessive behavior because you’re just like ‘everything has to be drippy’ as the kids say, or everything has to be of a certain standard,” said HighSnobiety’s Mr. Deleon.
Unfortunately, even special socks can fall victim to the spin cycle. “I’ve lost socks in the laundry, who hasn’t?” said Mr. Deleon. “But now I have $80 socks that are orphans.” After all, a dryer can’t tell the difference between Prada and Fruit of the Loom.
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Write to Jacob Gallagher at Jacob.Gallagher@wsj.com
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