This simple wardrobe tip is used by creative, successful people. My 6-year-old son, Lincoln, is in kindergarten. Every day he gets up, puts on the clothes I laid out for him the night before, ignores the white socks accompanying said clothes and goes instead to his sock drawer, where he rifles through until he finds a pair of Avengers socks. Or Spiderman socks. Or rubber-bottomed trampoline socks from Urban Air.
If the socks have Thor or Hulk on them, he pulls them all the way up to his knees to show off his favorite characters. If they don’t, he pulls them up to his knees and then rolls them back down to his ankles. Then he finishes off with tennis shoes or, on special days, crocs.
The child looks ridiculous, but I never make him change. Choosing his socks makes him happy, and he’s always so proud of the outcome. So the crazy sock choices stay, and I drop him off, give him a kiss, and cross my fingers that no other kids will make fun of him.
According to Quartz, letting Lincoln wear crazy socks is the right move. As sock choices go, crazy socks are chosen by successful, creative people.
Colorful or character socks show playfulness and make a great icebreaker or way to connect with others, says Lauren Rothman, a stylist and author of Style Bible: What to Wear to Work. She thinks the trend may have started in Silicon Valley. “Folks are showing their power, their bravado in the boardroom. The louder the socks, the bigger the wallet.”
Serious people and politicians don funky footwear. For former US president George H.W. Bush’s birthday last year, several political pals pulled some on. So do tech types at Twitter and Giga Omni Media, where the colorful geometric patterned socks serve as “this universal sign, almost like a gang sign,” Hunter Walk, a YouTube director, told the New York Times.
I’ll admit that I’ve been hesitant to jump on the crazy sock bandwagon. They just seem so extreme, so … crazy! And yet, if bold choices in footwear correspond to bold, successful lives, it seems like the crazier, the better.
Maybe it’s time for me to take a page out of my son’s playbook and rock my own crazy socks. But I think I’ll stick with strips and patterns for now. Even as crazy socks go, Thor socks are still a little much for this mom.
Read more:
5 Surprisingly simple tips to make your children more creative
