Matching socks–out. Coordinated socks–in.

An American company has determined what experienced mothers have known for a long time: Matching socks are not a fashion priority. In fact, it’s more fashionable to have mismatched (but coordinating) socks–sold in threes instead of in pairs.

I guess I won’t have to complain about this anymore.

An impressive gimmick. I wish I had thought of it. But I suppose you can’t put one sock from one set of three with another set. Can you imagine trying to sort these in the laundry?

Hat tip: Commenter Abbi.

Comments

  1. Jacob da Jew says

    My wife tried to get me to use those sock loops. Psha, yeah right.

  2. But I suppose you can’t put one sock from one set of three with another set
    Why not? Is there a sock police no one told me about?

  3. wow, interesting idea, I haven’t seen any kids with these socks yet, I would think it would take a little while to catch on.

  4. mother in israel says

    Leora–there isn’t?
    TJS: when there is a marketing campaign there is a way.
    Phyllis: You have a pair, or a trio?
    JDJ–Imagine having to keep threes togehter..

  5. it’s very hard with kids who don’t like unmatched socks, tho. then what do you do with those crazy things!? i have a pair and like them a lot:-)

  6. it does have a sort of funkyness to it…
    but why are they sets of three? what is wrong with just having two socks that dont match?

  7. and how come they dont have these for boys? or even for grown men?

  8. There’s an easier way to deal with this problem–but many identical pairs of socks. I have 7 pairs of white socks and 4 of black. Because they’re all the same, I don’t even bother to match; I just grab 2 of the right color.

  9. Rafi, a href=”http://www.littlemissmatched.com/Catalog/mens-socks”>ahem
    I didn’t want you to feel left out.

  10. hey my linky didn’t work. 🙁
    I thought this site is very funny, and as most other people who frequently wear socks on the planet, we have this constant problem. But I don’t think i’d go so far as to buy these socks.
    I do wish there was some magic way you could make sure all of your socks go in and come out of the laundry.
    I guess they call that a sock bag…

  11. Abbi – you could just buy a lot of pairs of the same kind of socks. that way even of some disappear, they are not mismatched, because they are all the same

  12. Hanna Anderson and mini Boden have them, too.

  13. For my husband and me, we buy in sets of six pairs or twelve pairs so we have tons to match, but for my daughter, we buy the ones that come with treads.
    At her daycare, she almost never goes outside, so we prefer she not wear shoes all day, so we get her socks with treads. We’ve had to get organized about the mesh bags.
    I do admit to putting her in socks that are different colors, but the same pattern or the same colors but different patterns. I try to make sure that the thicknesses of the socks match, though.

  14. Oh, and these socks are super overpriced!
    We try very hard not to pay more than a dollar a pair.

  15. It won’t work. The pair that has been worn will be faded a bit, and the third sock won’t match…..

  16. Washing and sorting socks is fine to make people understand why the British kids wear uniforms complete with black socks.

  17. brilliant! i have convinced (some) of my children that if the socks came from the same packet ie the patterns co-ordinate, then that’s fine – now they’re selling them like that to start with! Yesterday my son was delighted to discover that what i thought was a pair when they were inside out, was one airplane sock and one car/traffic light sock – how much better does it get when you are three?

  18. Expensive!
    My youngest daughter has taken to wearing mismatched socks. She thinks its fun and I believe she is starting a local fashion trend.
    But I’d never pay extra for that.

  19. mother in israel says

    Never to be behind in fashion trends, I sent my daughter out this morning in coordinating socks–with sandals.

  20. My three year old has a set (I guess it can’t be called a pair, can it?) of the Little Mismatched Socks. They are super cute. And you *can* mix up the sets. They actually sell a package of nine different socks. Anyway, my daughter loves her socks.
    But today she took it a step further. We went through our normal morning routine:
    Me: Dress or pants?
    Her: Skirt!
    Me: Okay, which one?
    Her: Green one!
    Me: Let me find the shirt that goes with it…
    Her: No! I want to mismatch today. I want… this shirt!
    She had on a green shirt, white tights with pink hearts, an orange shirt, and purple crocs. Funny thing is, she kind of pulled it off. Glad someone in my family has style sense…
    But now for the real question: my socks develop holes in nanoseconds. Do I have pointy toes and heels? Or are socks just not as well made as they used to be? 🙂

  21. This Chanuka, we gave each of us silly socks. The boys were my judges, and we found that while silly socks for women abound (Target), we hit the land of white tubes for men. But for kids, surely we could do better? Surprisingly, the missmatched triple was the only silly sock set we found.
    Odd, that. But hey, for a Chanuka gift at under $9/person, we thought it was just fine.