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INSTITUT DI.:
How's your socks life?
Men: are you still wearing those dull
old gray, brown or navy blue socks?
You're out of date! Get with it!
These are the '90s!
If you are wearing the new pat-
terned hosiery, you're hip, but don't
get too smug. You're just doing what
your dad and grandad did.
Nothing is new in fashion, you know.
Everything is recycled.
Don Young is an eyewitness to the
patterned hosiery. Young is menswear
buyer for Mark Shale, a chain of 10
upscale stores in the Midwest.
"Patterned dress hosiery is a busi-
ness that in the last four years has just
been explosive," he said. "It's doub-
led our hosiery business.
"But basically, this is nothing new.
My father wore patterned dress hos-
iery: his father wore patterned dress
hosiery. Most men prior to the 1950s
did. Then Orlon came in. It was next
to impossible to do a patterned dress
sock out of Orlon. So patterned
socks, especially for dress, just disap-
peared."
Then, about five years ago, fancy
hosiery with socks appeal started
showing up again, thanks to new
technology.
A generation that thought it was on
to something new started scooping
them up.
Crain's, a business newspaper out of
Chicago, says Chicagoans are a tad
fashion-cautious and didn't jump on
the bandwagon until last year. But
now these hot socks are hot. Crain's
says patterned hosiery by high-
fashion designers such as Perry Ellis,
Christian Dior and Georgio Armani
surged 35 percent this year.
Young thinks at least 50 percent of
the guys out there are wearing pat-
terned dress hosiery. "The guy that
first started out four or five years ago
wearing a little pin dot on his sock
may now be wearing a bold geomet-
ric or paisley pattern," Young said.
"He keeps progressing, getting a lit-
tle more daring."
Some of the patterned hosiery
sports subdued patterns, but some
patterns can get pretty wild.
Young says the wild stuff should be
saved for sportswear.