Sock Style Tips

Should your socks match your necktie?

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Although neckwear is becoming less common in today’s casual workplace environment, there is still a time and a place for wearing ties — such as a wedding, a funeral, or other formal event.  Neckties originated as a way for a man to add style to an otherwise bland suit outfit, and bowties have emerged as a popular trend as well.  There are even tie of the month clubs available to get a new tie each month.

Socks and Necktie

A common question is how to pair socks with a tie?  Here are some tips for pairing socks and ties together in your outfit.

1. Socks should generally match your pants or shoes
A rule of thumb is to wear socks that match the color of your pants. As a backup, you can also wear socks that match the color of your shoes.  Never wear white socks in a formal occasion, and don’t explicitly try to match your socks to your tie.

2. Your socks shouldn’t match your tie
If your sock color and pattern is an exact match to your tie color and pattern, it will get noticed — and not in a good way! It’s ok to wear patterned socks and ok to wear colorful ties, but if they are too closely connected, the outfit loses its style and looks too programmatic.

3. Don’t be goofy!
People will notice if you overthink it.  And people will notice if you went overboard with your entire outfit.  Keep it simple and clean. It’s ok to wear patterned socks and patterned ties, but if too closely coordinated it starts to look a little out of whack!

Looking for a great curated tie? Try out Root Bizzle’s tie of the month club. 

Ways to wear socks with Brown Shoes

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Pairing socks with shoes can be tricky business, especially if you don’t regularly wear dress shoes in today’s increasingly casual workplace dress environments.  Here are some best practices for wearing socks with brown dress shoes.

Sock Subscriptions and Sock of the Month Clubs

1. Your socks should typically match your pants
A general rule of thumb is that your sock color should match your pant color. For example, if you are wearing navy pants, you should wear navy socks.  Black pants warrant black socks.  Gray pants are a bit trickier, but you should wear socks that are gray or a darker shade than the gray you are wearing.

2. You can wear brown socks to match your shoes
Generally, if you don’t have socks that match your pant color, its ok to audible and find a pair of socks that matches your shoe color. So if you are wearing brown shoes, its ok to also wear brown socks. However, make sure your socks are a lighter shade of brown than your shoes (and its often pretty common to wear tan socks)

3. Colorful socks are acceptable in the right scenario
If you are at a wedding or other uplifting, party type event, its ok to wear colorful socks with brown shoes.  Colorful socks can really make your outfit “pop”, but be mindful of the rest of your outfit and make sure you don’t go overboard with too much color across your socks, belt, tie, and shirt.

Looking for a great online sock store to find socks to pair with brown shoes? Try out Ozone Socks!

How to pair sock colors with a gray suit

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As we’ve discussed previously in our sock style tip series, there are lots of nuances to wearing socks and making sure you correctly pair socks with both your pants and shoes.

Sock Styles for Men

One common enigma that people who wear socks encounter is how to pair socks with a gray suit — because its very rare to actually own or wear gray socks.

Typically, the rule of thumb is to wear the same color socks as your suit pants. For example, if you are wearing a navy suit, you wear navy socks.  A black suit warrants black socks. But a gray suit?  Here are our tips:

1. Is your suit dark gray or light gray?  
If your suit is dark gray, you may be able to pull off black socks or any pair of socks that are a darker shade of your suit color (assuming you don’t own socks that are dark gray).  If your suit is light gray, you can also try dark gray socks or any darker color sock than light gray (again, assuming you don’t own any light gray socks). In both cases, you want your socks to be darker than your suit color but lighter than your shoe color.

2. What color are your shoes?
A backup plan, in the event you are wearing a gray suit and don’t have any gray socks, is to wear socks that match your shoe color. For example, brown shoes would be paired with brown socks. Black shoes with black socks.

3. White socks continue to be a no-no
Don’t wear white socks — they are lighter than your gray suit, and a general no-no in the context of wearing a suit.

4. In the right scenario, you can wear colorful socks 
A wedding is a great event to sport a light gray suit and then some whimsical patterned socks (provided you don’t go over the top with colorful shirts, ties, belts, etc as well!).

Looking for a colorful set of socks to pair with your gray suit? Try out Say it with a Sock’s Sock of the Month Club!

 

 

When is it appropriate to wear white socks?

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As part of our sock style tips collection, one question we want to address is when to wear white socks. Dress socks and colorful socks are appropriate in many obvious occasions. But increasingly it feels like white socks are being marginalized and only appropriate when working out at the gym.  Is that the case? Here is our guide for when to wear white socks.

white socks

According to this Esquire article in February 2017, white socks are making a comeback. When are the best times to wear white socks?

  1. When you are wearing sneakers
    This is an obvious one — if you are at the gym, its appropriate to wear white socks with your sneakers. However, increasingly sneakers are becoming appropriate as an item to wear casually — most major shoe companies are releasing “nice” sneakers that can be worn to the office or out at a party. Wearing a clean set of white socks helps the sneakers stand out.
  2. When you are wearing light colored shoes
    Dress shoes have moved beyond the traditional black or brown dress shoe options.  More and more, white dress shoes or tan dress shoes are becoming viable options. Its ok to wear white socks in these scenarios, even if you are wearing shorts in most cases.
  3. If your white socks are actually white!
    Be mindful of the quality and cleanliness of your socks. If they are socks that have been worn for years while you are at the gym, they are likely tattered and should remain in your “gym only” collection. Or if they are white socks with random colors or logos on them, they might be perceived as goofy.  The best white socks are clean, high quality, and single color.

If you are looking to buy white socks online, check out Ozone Socks!

 

3 tips for matching socks to your outfit

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Matching socks to your outfit can be a tricky problem for those with high style demands, different color shoes, different color pants or trousers, and a rotation of suit colors for both weddings and work.  Here are 3 tips for anyone trying to better match their socks with their outfit:

matching socks with your outfit

1. Your socks should match your trousers
Follow this as a rule of thumb. If you are wearing navy pants, wear navy socks. Black pants should be paired with black socks.  Adding in the shoe dynamic can make things tricky, but generally you should wear black shoes with black pants, and black or brown shoes can work well with navy pants.

2. Be careful with going too bold with your socks
A flashy pair of socks can really lighten up an otherwise dull outfit. However, if the rest of your outfit is very flashy (such as your necktie or belt), be careful going overboard with crazy sock patterns and colors. You can end up looking more goofy than stylish!

3. Precise matching can also be a no-no.
Socks and ties are two parts of an outfit that can come with flash. Increasingly, belts are popular in crazy colors. However, matching a pair of socks and belt and tie with the exact same pattern can look pre-programmed and not very stylish at all.

If you are looking for a fun sock club, check out our list of the 5 best fun sock of the month clubs to choose from!