Until about a year ago, I spent a lot of time thinking about socks. I was always someone who liked fun socks. In middle and high school, I wore these every day; socks with peanut butter and jelly print, socks with hotdog dachshunds, knee-high snowflake-patterned socks, blue socks printed with my girl best friend’s face and pink socks printed with my boy best friend’s.
They were usually crew socks or longer. I had sensitive skin and little money to buy razors or shaving products, so I didn’t shave my legs unless I had to. I liked that the socks covered the unshaved portion of my ankle that would have otherwise poked out from the bottom of my pants. I would constantly pull the socks up as high as they would go, for insurance and comfort.
People complimented my socks a lot, telling me how fun they were or how much they enjoyed the designs. That felt good. Sometimes my friends would make fun of me for pulling my socks all the way up. “Why do you do that?” they’d ask, and I’d tell them that I thought letting them fall down was uncomfortable, which was true. They told me it looked silly. I laughed with them, but I didn’t actually think it was very funny. It was embarrassing. Sometimes I wondered if I was being too weird and annoying with the bright colors and playful patterns.
As I transitioned from high school to college, I slowly stopped wearing fun socks, save for the pumpkin ones I wear on Halloween or the Santa ones I break out for Christmas parties. This change was quick and sudden, owing mostly to a final-straw moment in which I arrived to my first ever college class and found out it was being conducted in a room with special dance flooring, and we had to remove our shoes — on that day I had worn the bubblegum pink socks with my friend’s face printed all over them. Everyone saw them. I was mortified.
My decision to stop wearing fun socks was also motivated by the fact that I started caring more about fashion. I wanted my outfits to match. I started paying attention to what was trending and what made a look work. Peanut butter and jelly socks did not fit into my new style.
I started wearing plain black socks instead. Eventually I started shaving my legs more regularly too, finally having figured out what skincare works for me. I acquired longer pants, and I switched to white ankle socks. I’m not the loud funny girl with silly socks anymore; I’m just like everyone else, quiet and normal. I don’t get made fun of now. But it’s not just how people treat me that’s important, it’s how I feel. Wearing white ankle socks makes me feel trendy, mostly when I can see them peeking out from my trendy chunky sneakers. I feel good about myself. I feel good about my socks.
I was recently surprised, however, to discover that the socks I wear are already old news. If you google “trendy socks” you are met with images of earth-toned crew socks, socks with stripes or socks with frilly trim. There are patterned socks and colorful ones too. They are all mid-calf.
Gymshark reported that ankle socks are “the biggest millennial giveaway,” but also claimed that 41% of Gen-Z adults favor them. The New York Times encouraged bright, experimental and eye-catching socks in September. It says your socks are supposed to be not just visible but compelling. A Reddit user on r/femalefashionadvice asked how to wear socks now that ankle cut is out, and another user commented about the ridicule they encountered in the ’90s for their socks being visible in any way. The Gymshark article contradictorily claimed that the current long-sock fashion trends are a resurgence of ’90s streetwear. All of these discussions urge you to scrunch your crew socks or wear quarter socks with lace or frills or something interesting. Patterns are back too, with cute flowers or aesthetic images and shapes. If you’re having trouble picturing it, this blog post from November has an extensive gallery of how your socks are supposed to look.
It might seem silly to care so much about socks, but at the same time, my outdated sock-wearing tendencies during childhood led to teasing that contributed to years of self-consciousness about not just my socks, but every part of my appearance. And now, my beloved, simple, there-but-quiet and work-with-any-outfit ankle socks are officially outdated.
Boo-hoo.
People often laugh at adults for their fashion faux pas, and as a teenager, I did too. But as I read article upon article about the particulars of how I’m supposed to wear a sock, I could feel the bitter spirit of a 40-year-old dad in socks and sandals slowly possessing me. The more I read, the more set I became in this simple opinion: you can pry my white ankle socks out of my cold dead hands.
I love my socks. I love the way they make me feel and the way they make me look. After years of insecurity over the simple fabric sleeve that separates the skin of my foot from the inside of my shoe, I found comfort in the safety of the pack of ankle socks I picked up off of a shelf in the Target on State Street. They weren’t too loud, too silly or too different. They made me feel like I had finally found my way into the life I wanted, a life led by someone who knows what socks they are supposed to be wearing.
The most interesting thing is that finally feeling as though I fit in gave me the courage to stand out. Becoming confident in my own skin, or rather my own socks, made me stop caring what others thought. Now I throw on whatever socks I want; if it’s a funny sock day, so be it. If it’s a white ankle sock day, like most days, that’s good too. Whatever socks I’m wearing, I don’t care anymore what anyone else thinks of them.
This isn’t just a scoff at the ridiculousness of fast fashion or trends. This is me standing firm with something that has become part of who I am; I don’t want to change them. Every morning, I slip on my short white socks, and I feel confident. I’m refusing to live in a constant cycle of questioning my sock choices, wondering why I was the only one wearing socks that were so loud with color, wondering if I was being secretly judged for them, wondering why everything about me never seemed to fit in, all the way down to my ankles. I’ve had enough.
This isn’t to say that I hate trendy quarter socks with their soft colors and cutesy designs or find them ugly or stupid. I honestly love them, and I think they’re really cute, fun and fashionable. But so are my socks. Do not try to tell me otherwise.
Daily Arts Writer Audrey Hollenbaugh can be reached at aehollen@umich.edu.
