Pretty, profane or pulled up? How socks became cool

The Guardian

6 hours ago

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.
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. Maybe it took seeing Natalie Portman wearing black socks with high heels, or Lauren Laverne posting pictures of her 'Fucking Legend' socks on Instagram.
Almost 20 years since Sock Shop closed in the UK, hosiery has suddenly been returning to the high street – and online specialists have been popping up too. The independent retailer Socktopus has seven shops around the UK but has plans to add more – it sold 640,000 pairs last year and expects to sell 1m this year. Marks & Spencer says sales of women's socks are growing each year, and the accessory is increasingly on offer as a souvenir: at Glastonbury and Wimbledon they make up part of the merchandise collection.
My Guardian colleague Jess Cartner-Morley says socks are fashion's 'hottest topic of the decade', while Lynne Hugill, a 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 now a heel'.
At M&S, where hosiery is a stock in trade (19m pairs of women's socks are sold there every year), 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, has taken part in four international fashion weeks in the past year. 'We did Berlin as our own show, but for Copenhagen, Paris and New York we partnered with designers who came to us and said: 'Hey, we need socks on our runway. Can we work together?',' says the chief marketing and design officer Fiona Murchison. 'That shows the move into the fashion world – if they're on the runway, then, of course, it trickles down.'
While shrinkflation has been a big issue in consumer goods, the opposite has hit socks. No-show trainer socks are out, and fabric is slowly rising up the shin. 'We've extended that length higher than the average retailer,' says Murchison. 'Which only the most in-tune sock buyer would maybe notice, but it's an important shift for us because while ankle socks are staple, we see this growing enthusiasm for higher lengths.'
The look is highlighted with a word or detail near the cuff. This means 'people are more inclined to pull it up that little teeny bit more,' she says. 'It's a bit more important as a piece … a bit like wearing a giant necklace or something.' When we speak on Zoom, she takes off a sock to show me: it's from a collaboration with Awake NY and in a sports style with a little 'A' near the top.
This rising trend isn't just true on bare legs. Lois Woodcock, the head of design at the athleisure company Gymshark, says: 'One trend that stands out is the growing love for crew socks, which are halfway between ankle socks and knee-high socks, particularly with our gen Z community.'
Woodcock says these buyers are 'styling their socks very intentionally, often layering crisp white crew socks over leggings'.
But while gymgoers may go for plain white, elsewhere there is a move towards pattern and detail. At M&S, female shoppers are looking for sheer, ribbed, lace and embellished socks, and there's 'a huge demand for playful details like ruffles and bows'.
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'.
Socktopus has thousands of designs, from the whimsical to the artistic, via the F-word. Popular choices include a range of capybaras in cowboy hats – originally suggested by a customer. The firm also makes Henry VIII and his wives socks, which Josie Starsmore, the creative director, is wearing when we speak. Starsmore says people love to come into the shops and try to 'marry the exact sock with the exact person'. Her husband and co-founder Nick (wearing frog socks), says, 'If people think the pattern on a sock looks anything like their dog, they come in and they say, 'You've got Billy socks!' because we've got a sock with a border terrier and luckily it looks like Billy.'
In Socktopus branches, the sweary socks are concealed with cardboard. You can have a matching pair or, from an odd-socks pile, make up your own: you could have 'Cock' emblazoned in silver on black on your left leg and 'Twat' in gold on white on your right, or other family-unfriendly combinations.
Nick says profane socks 'are quite interesting because the lady who is wearing a floral dress and has two spaniels and comes to our stand at Badminton Horse Trials, and the kind of younger customer at Comic Con, both love socks that say 'fuck off' on them.'
Josie says her mum helped at a show and was originally disapproving of the sweary socks but, 'after the second day of asking, 'What is it about these socks that you like so much?', people were really opening up to her, saying it's almost like by wearing these socks to work or in a difficult situation or with my boss who I can't stand I'm having a minor rebellion.' She says: 'That really changed my mum's point of view because then she was like, my God, I actually think there's a real place for this, it's like a tiny little empowerment.'
Shorter trouser lengths mean that socks are generally more on display than they were, and are a factor in their rising popularity. But the main reason we all have more time for socks, say those in the know, is the pandemic. 'What really moved it on is Covid,' says Hugill. 'We were looking for comfort, and it changed the way people dress for work. People got used to being at home and wearing their Birkenstocks or their sliders with socks.'
The pandemic led to a decline in suit sales, and to the more general acceptance of trainers as office-wear, and so the traditional black or navy blue sock for men, and maybe tights for women, have been reassessed.
The financial climate may also have played a role. 'I think there's an element of the lipstick effect,' says Murchison, referring to the theory that in economic downturns consumers look to low-cost indulgences. 'It's a very affordable element to change your outfit. We would consider ourselves, I suppose, a little bit more on the premium end, pricing wise, but nevertheless, you can buy a single sock for 12 euros. So it doesn't break the bank to change up a look.'
Josie at Socktopus says rising costs elsewhere may be driving purchases among gift buyers. 'I think the £12 bottle of wine means we've benefited from an £8 pair of gift socks.'
She suggests the kidulthood trend, with grownups embracing cute things, and social media have both helped drive sales of patterned and fluffy socks. The thing about socks is they're very inclusive, she says. It doesn't matter what size you are, or what age.
That said, at a certain age, it's difficult to know how far to take it – both towards the knee and in terms of pattern.
Cartner-Morley says that, generally, she thinks black-and-white socks look better than patterned with shorts or skirts or over leggings, but adds: 'I love a colourful sock if you just get a flash of it, for instance with loafers and trousers.'
Of sweary socks, she says, 'I'm not a big fan of anything novelty-adjacent, but on the other hand, any sock that cheers you up or makes you smile is a good sock.'
If you want to go for something plain but a bit different from the socks you wore at school, Murchison says solid colours have sold well. Red was in, but now things have moved on and the hot colour is a 'really poppy vibrant blue'.
Or, to spruce up an outfit of a dress and trainers she suggests an 'extra fine … a kind of more dainty sock'.
She says no one's too old for knee-length socks: 'If you wear a longer length skirt, then you wear it like a tight, basically. It's like wearing a pair of tights, but you can wear it in the summer.'
Some will cleave to the no-show trainer sock which, after all, was for many years the agreed-on way to wear hosiery in the summer months and is a sock-drawer staple.
Cartner-Morley says that in a recent WhatsApp group chat between friends, someone asked if it was OK to wear trainer socks with a dress and trainers to a party or if she had to wear socks as decreed by fashion. 'After a heated debate we decided that, so long as there wasn't likely to be anyone under 35 at the party, she was safe to wear trainer socks,' she says.
Otherwise, I'm afraid there are no excuses. We all need to pull our socks up.