Mens novelty socks – curse of the 80s boardroom, butt of the 90s office joke. Where are they now? Alive, kicking and as frightful as ever – though at least with the OTT nature of some modern mens novelty socks, at least we won’t be seeing them in the boardroom anytime soon. If, that is, the economy survives long enough for there to be any boardrooms left – or indeed for us to have any spare cash to buy mens novelty socks.
Here’s the thing: over the last 20 years, mens novelty socks simply meant “anything worn between foot and shoe (by a man) that had something on it”. The British bloke was hidebound and reactionary to a degree in the matter of what the wonderful “All About Socks: A History of Socks” defines as “a knitted garment for enclosing the human foot” – generally speaking, mens socks were black, blue or grey. If they had any kind of secondary tone, or (heaven forbid) and actual pattern on them, they were mens novelty socks – and woe betide the guy who trotted into his job actually wearing a pair. If he wasn’t sacked on the spot he’d be ridiculed into quitting within a month.
Then some bright spark thought that (along with novelty ties/shirts/wallets/tiepins/cufflinks) mens novelty socks would be a good way of “loosening up” the hidebound Brit, in home and workplace. The next thing anyone knew, commuter trains were, from the ankles down, a riot of mens novelty socks: Homer Simpson, Road Runner, comedy “Left” and “Left” socks indicating that the man in question had two left feet. How we laughed. For a while. After which point mens novelty socks were just, well, normal. Cartoonish footwear was no more “novelty” than a pair of shoes.
Enter, then, the 21st century – and the brave new dawn of extreme mens novelty socks. Gone are the halcyon days where having a picture of H. Simpson drinking a tin of Duff beer was enough to qualify one’s garb as mens novelty socks. A person wishing to toe the mens novelty socks line today needs giant knitted protrusions (usually ones that make some kind of irritating noise) or even (this is true) scent-releasing pouches. Neither of which, one would think, could ever make it into the office without instant dismissal. Though in an age where “Build a New Life in the Country” is apparently serious programming, who can tell?
