The Rules On Matching Color & Pattern When It Comes To Socks - How To Match Men's Socks
Hi!
I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Today, we're going to be talking about men's socks, the rules on color and pattern.
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Without further ado, here's the question that came in.
This came in from George Cook.
He's actually a good friend of mine and he runs the website The Style Insiders and a
very interesting gentleman.
He had a good question about socks.
"Mr. Centeno, I have a question or a topic for you.
While going through your videos, I don't recall you covering men's dress socks and how they
go with a suit or a more formal wear.
How does color play a factor?
What's your perspective on this?"
Okay.
Let me go ahead and answer that for George, so I'm going to break it down into three rules.
You can say there's more, you can say there's less.
I'm just going to say there's three right now.
1.
The basic one that you'll hear most of the time is that your socks should match your
trousers.
Some people will say they should actually match your shoes.
At the end of the day, what you're looking for is a streamlined transition from the legs
to the foot because what you don't want, you don't want someone's eyes -- when you're an
amateur, when you're just starting off in men's style, you don't want people's eyes
getting stuck on your socks.
It's just at this point not where you want to be.
Now, I'm going to change this up a bit and I'm going to contradict this here in a minute,
but that's what you want.
So whether or not you coordinate them with your footwear, whether or not you coordinate
with them through your trousers, you're probably going to be okay.
2.
Now, some men are going to say it has to be with your trousers because it's going to elongate
the leg.
It's going to make you just look better.
At the end of the day, just wear dark trousers and you're going to be fine 99.9% of the time,
assuming that you're wearing a dark suit.
If you've got a dark navy blue suit on, no one's going to notice that you're wearing
black socks, so you don't have to have navy socks to match that exactly, or if you're
wearing a black suit and you've got navy socks.
And if you've got both of those, well, why not just wear them together?
But you get what I'm saying, dark socks, make sure they match the trousers.
If they match the shoes, it's okay assuming that you've got dark colored shoes.
Now, if you're wearing some white box and you're wearing a dark dress suit, you've got
other problems and matching your socks isn't really going to help or resolve that at all.
3.
The other one is that you want to make sure that the socks are high enough.
So if you happen to be a guy that crosses one leg over the other, you do not want to
show your ankles.
It's just something that is instantly a flash of color.
Unless you are as dark or the same color as your suit, people are going to look at the
leg.
Maybe on a woman and maybe back in the 18th Century, showing a bit of ankle was kind of
sexy.
In the year 2012, showing ankle as a man especially with our hairy ankles and all that stuff,
it doesn’t look sexy, guys.
It actually looks like you don't know how to buy the right size socks, so make sure
your socks are the right size.
Make sure they're dark and try to match them with your trousers preferably, but if you
match them with your shoes, no one is going to care.
Okay, so let's go a little bit farther into this and let's talk about having fun with
socks.
So most of the socks we wear are like this.
These are from blacksocks.com.
This is a great company.
I don't get any money from them.
I just like what they're doing over there.
They actually have this thing called "sockscription", so it's pretty cool and they sent me those
socks, so I like to use them.
Good socks, black socks like that are going to be fine for most men, but if you want to
change things up, if you want to add a bit of spice and variety, socks are a place where
a lot of men, they never think about it, but they can add a bit of color.
Let's assume that you've got that dark suit, navy blue suit, dark black shoes, and you're
not really a pocket square guy.
You're not really into pink ties or outlandish shirts with bright stripes.
Well, why not bring in a little bit of color on the sock?
Here's a little bit of color.
I picked these up in London.
Yes, George, I did just pull these off my feet.
You can introduce a bit of color.
It's one of those little quirky things that most people aren't going to notice because
your trousers are going -- unless you're wearing -- what's his name?
I can't even remember the designer right now.
Somebody put a comment in there.
Tom, I can't remember whoever the designer is, but in any case -- I can't believe I'm
drawing a blank here.
In any case, he wears trousers and he put out the style.
I guess it was fashionable a couple of years ago.
I don't follow fashion, so I don't always stay up on this stuff, but basically they
were showing a lot of sock or lack of in showing the ankle.
In any case, I hope you're not wearing that stuff.
And when you're not, most people are not going to see your socks.
Therefore, you don't have to worry.
You could be wearing pink socks and the only people that are going to see it are occasionally
when you're in a position in which the trousers come up and you show a bit of sock.
Who knows why you want to be wearing pink socks?
Maybe you want to be wearing red socks.
Blacksocks.com makes a really cool red sock, really bright.
I just think something like that, people are going to see it and they're going to go, "Interesting."
It's again one of those little style things which can help you stand out.
You don't have to go with a bright color.
There are many socks with argyle patterns with blacks mixed in with greys that are very
simple, very stylish, so let's say a gentleman who doesn’t want to be very loud, but he
does want to introduce a bit of color to his hosiery -- I think that's the other word for
it.
At the end of the day, socks are something you can have fun with.
If you know what you're doing style-wise, if you don't know what you're doing, go with
simple black socks.
You're always going to be safe.
Unless you're going to the gym in the United States, then wear your white socks.
I guess that's a whole another subject.
I'm going to assume that you're not wearing white socks with your suit.
That was part of the three parts at the beginning that you make sure your socks are dark, that
you make sure that they fit you correctly, and you make sure that they match your trousers.
No socks as a statement or during the summer, this could be its own video.
I'm just going to say if you choose not to wear socks, in my opinion, it should be in
the summer.
It should usually be with a more casual suit and make sure to use that foot powder.
Okay.
This has been Antonio Centeno with Real Men Real Style.
I hope you enjoyed the video.
If you want to learn more, make sure to check our other videos and I will see you in the
comments.
Bye-bye.