Thread: I’ll Be Darned, Wearing Socks With Sandals Is Fashionable

I’ll Be Darned, Wearing Socks With Sandals Is Fashionable

From football players to runway models, some don’t toe traditional line

At men’s apparel shows this spring, runway models sported a look that many fashion experts believe is just wrong. “It’s not acceptable,” says Sam Spector, a fashion stylist whose clients include actors Daniel Radcliffe and Neil Patrick Harris.
Wearing socks with sandals—a source of endless ridicule for dads, German tourists and hippies—is allegedly in vogue. Calvin Klein Collection, Bottega Veneta, Marni and other luxury labels showcased the pairing at men’s runway shows in June. Attendees at men’s New York Fashion Week in July wore the comfortable combination. Footwear-maker Teva recently started selling sock-and-sandal packages while offering an online guide on how to pull off the look.

Part of the credit, or blame, for the trend goes to the sports locker room. One recent afternoon before practice, about a dozen New York Giants players trotted out of the locker room to speak to the media. Half of them wore socks with sandals.

“Everybody that I know wears socks with flip-flops, except females,” says Brandon Meriweather, an eight-year National Football League veteran who doesn’t limit that look to the locker room. When he shows up at the mall wearing dark sandals with white socks, Mr. Meriweather says strangers ask two questions: “Are you Brandon Meriweather?” and “Why are you wearing socks with flip-flops?”



Mr. Meriweather and other athletes say they wear socks with sandals because they can. The locker room has no dress code, and their feet take a beating in cramped cleats. It’s nice to relax their toes.

British designer James Long says athletes are perfect icons for high-end fashion houses, which in recent years have moved away from stylish-but-restrictive designs in favor of apparel that looks good and feels comfortable.

At his Spring 2015 men’s show in London, Mr. Long outfitted models with socks and sandals. “The look was a ‘sports Jesus’ theme,” he says. “It was a feeling of a sports star that gave up sport and moved to Ibiza to pursue the more relaxed life.”

In some cases, inspiration for the look on the runways had less to do with sports than aesthetics. Consuelo Castiglioni, creative director for high-end fashion label Marni, saw socks as an accent, “an accessory, adding extra color and texture to the outfit.” At Marni’s Spring 2016 show in June, socks and sandals were worn with dressy shirts and slacks.


Some in the fashion industry applaud the trend. “Why not wear your favorite sandals year-round and pair it with beautiful cashmere sock?” says Grant Woolhead, a stylist and the fashion director for Out Magazine. He finds the I-don’t-care look of socks with sandals “kind of sexy.”

Mr. Woolhead says sports is a type of “American street culture, which I think really informs high-fashion people right now, and always has.” As another recent sports-inspired fashion trend, he cites the popularity of designer jackets and pants inspired by baseball uniforms.

But acceptance isn’t universal. Fashion vigilantes shame socks-and-sandals wearers on social media, posting surreptitiously taken photos of strangers on Twitter and Instagram while writing “#socksandsandals” in the caption.

To Mark Anthony Green, the “GQ Style Guy” for GQ Magazine, socks with sandals is paradoxical. “It’s not a good look,” Mr. Green says. “The inherent idea of sandals is that your feet are going to be exposed. To do that and then cover it with socks, you look confused.”

“If you are wearing socks with sandals because you’re embarrassed by your toes, you shouldn’t be wearing sandals at all,” says Mr. Spector, the stylist. “You should be wearing a closed-toe shoe.”

One poll of Brits, released by Cotton USA in June, ranked the footwear pairing as the top summer fashion faux pas, followed by streaky fake tans and wearing a strapless top with exposed bra straps.


“Some Germans like to wear socks with their Birkenstocks,” says Markus Kuhn, a New York Giants player from Germany who prefers socks with sneakers. “Not all Germans know how to dress well.”

Several Giants players say they have worn long, white socks with rubber slides, or flip-flops, for as long as they can remember. Cornerback Trumaine McBride, who is from Mississippi, and fullback Nikita Whitlock, who is from Texas, believe the look is part of both urban black culture and Southern culture.

As a child, Mr. Whitlock recalls, “you’re never allowed outside the house without socks on. At my grandmother’s house, you’re not allowed to walk around the house without socks.” He says the thinking was that without socks, “you’ll catch a cold.”

Mr. Whitlock and his teammates didn’t know they inspired some fashion designers. “Wow,” linebacker Jon Beason says. “I remember in college, when I would wear sandals with socks and people would be, that’s a no-no. People are always trying to change styles.”

High fashion started catching onto socks-with-sandals a couple of years ago. Last spring, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the twin actors and designers, were photographed with the look around the same time it started showing up on female models on the catwalk.

The phenomenon really caught up with men this year. Fashion consultant Nick Wooster, who recently made Vanity Fair’s 2015 International Best-Dressed List, showed up at New York Fashion Week: Men’s this year wearing toeless green socks with orange stripes along with gray, double-strapped sandals. At runway shows, models featured a variety of looks, including long white or black socks with shiny sandals and colorful, patterned socks paired with something more muted.

Teva started promoting a socks-with-sandals pairing last year in collaboration with Woolrich socks. Its website recommends wearing neutral-colored clothing above the ankles because socks with sandals already make a statement. “We know this quirky combo isn’t for everyone,” says Lorie Pointer, Teva’s director of product and design. “You either love or hate it, and that’s OK.”

Rachel Johnson, a style strategist who counts athletes such as Amar’e Stoudemire and Victor Cruz as clients, says she wasn’t a fan of the look but reconsidered after spotting a stylish young man in socks and sandals during New York Fashion Week. She says men who want to dip their toes in socks-with-sandals wearing should ease into it by staying monochromatic.

“That way it almost looks like you have a full shoe on even though you don’t,” she says.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ill-be-d...ble-1442322000

The whole article reverberates with homoerotic frisson. Either that, or it is just plain gay.

I read about this today.

Very stupid.

If you want to wear socks w/ sandals wear them.

If not, don't.

It's that fucking simple.

All TD sock and sandal wearing shifters can come out of the closet at last.Not going to mention any names.

^



It has ALWAYS been fashionable to wear socks with sandals...

i have just been to the mini-mart in guess what? very liberating

Climate has the most influence, not fashion.

Originally Posted by Chittychangchang

I’ll Be Darned, Wearing Socks

Good pun.

Originally Posted by VocalNeal

Climate has the most influence, not fashion.

Speak for yourself Heinz,if it's cold most people will wear shoes or trainers

Originally Posted by VocalNeal

Climate has the most influence, not fashion.

....and social formalities/protocol.

The funny thing is that socks and sandles to the Thais is simply outstanding .

Up against the garb they wear it's positively top class.

Mark my fucking words, my crocs 'n socks trend will take the world by storm and you will all tremble at my very gaze.

^ young women on the BTS already tremble at your very gaze every morning and evening...

^^When I first came to Thailand I had a pair of red crocs.

It only takes one person to tell you that you look like fukkin Noddy, to fall out of love with them

^If you insist on wearing a blue hat with a bell on it that kind of shit is inevitable.

Toe be or not toe be that is the question
Whetehr hosiery is posery we need ask the trendsetters in such matters, a man in the vanguard of fashion with an arse trumpet would be the goto source of all sox cookers

Originally Posted by chassamui

^If you insist on wearing a blue hat with a bell on it that kind of shit is inevitable.

Camilla puts up with Big Ears

Originally Posted by terry57

The funny thing is that socks and sandles to the Thais is simply outstanding .

Up against the garb they wear it's positively top class.

I couldn't give the tiniest crap about what people think about what I wear on my feet, what some stranger thinks about my non existent fashion sense occupies no space in my mind, when you is as hansum as what I is you just can't fuk it up with mis matched clothing.

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

It has ALWAYS been fashionable to wear socks with sandals...

what colour socks do you wear with your orange pair ?

Originally Posted by Stinky

I couldn't give the tiniest crap about what people think about what I wear on my feet, what some stranger thinks about my non existent fashion sense occupies no space in my mind, when you is as hansum as what I is you just can't fuk it up with mis matched clothing.

Or better yet, no clothes at all

Nah I'm too scared I'd get mugged by the men after they see their woke lusting after my beautiful body.