Socks

Join Lexi McKelvy on a bite-sized deep dive on the soft knit tubes we all know and love: socks. In this episode, hear everything about socks, from the origins of the classic fashion faux-pas of socks with sandles to the wartime obsession with Nylon.

Further Reading for the Sock Obessed:

Adrian, Kim. Sock. Object Lessons. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. Accessed September 2, 2025. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501315091.     

British Museum. “Textile: Sock.” Accessed August 13th, 2025.  

Granata, Francesca. “Deconstruction Fashion: Carnival and the Grotesque.” Journal of Design History 26, no. 2 (2013): 182–98.

Handley, Susannah. Chapter 2, “1930–50: ‘N’ Day: The Dawn of Nylon,” pp. 31–51. In Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Isao, KUMAKURA, and Martha J. McClintock. “TEA DEVOTEE (CHAJIN) PRACTICES.” In Japanese Tea Culture: The Heart and Form of Chanoyu, 79–116. Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2023. .

Mauer, Elizabeth. “What came before knitting: the origins and development of nalbinding.” Journal of Undergraduate Anthropology (2013): 65.