Socks: The Final Frontier

For the past week I have been contemplating the bigger issues of life – finding beauty, sacredness, and nobility in everyday actions, conducting myself with kindness and integrity, trusting intuition – but at the same time I have been giving some thought to why it is exactly that my summer shoes outnumber my winter shoes threefold. I switched out the bottom half of my closet for winter last week, and was struck by the lack of parity in seasonal footwear.

Aside from the obvious – $2.50 flip-flops from Old Navy – a comparison of the quintessential warm weather shoe, the sandal, and the quintessential cold weather shoe, the boot, reveals that sandals are intrinsically more satisfying, to me at least. Aesthetically, it is the same reason that evening dresses are rarely long sleeved, high necked affairs, and even winter formal shoes are often open-toe. At a woman’s most elegant, she is revealing just a little something. Sandals do this, which is probably why I have a pair to match every sundress, skirt, etc., in my wardrobe.

There is a practical side as well. One can dress down a shamefully trashy pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals, but there is just no way on this earth to wear a pair of thigh-high boots and not look like a hooker. I could put on a nun’s habit with a pair of those things, and the effect would be entirely whorenun. (It would be spectacular if right here I could link to the SNL clip to which whorenun refers. It was the “Dieters Dream” episode of Sprockets, and probably the last time I watched SNL. If anyone can find it for me I would be most grateful. So far, I have gotten only links to youtube copyright infringement nastygrams. Whore… Nun… Whore… Nun… WhoreNun.)

As much as I like boots and tights, there is a limit to their versatility, and they’re just not sandals, which makes winter a little sad. Funky tights are a nice way to add a some sartorial spice, but every time I put on a pair I am reminded of the night that my college roommate, Spanky, sat me down and implored me on behalf of men the world over never to wear dark tights ever again because, as he put it, “they make legs scary.” Thirteen years later, and I can still hear the urgency in his voice every time I even think about wearing tights.

This is why I am especially delighted about today’s revelation at The Bon-Ton: over the knee socks. I have decided that this may be my thing this winter; in a way they are the yin to sandal’s yang. They are soft, dark, and cover a lot of territory, but are just a bit revealing on the flip side of legs. I’m thrilled because they cover all of the necessities. Allow for a little showing off, check. Reveal without being slutty if done properly, yep. Draw attention to the fruits of hours of my life spent in utkatasana, righto. Oh, and recognition that my butt will be cold? Indeed. Wool underpants, itchyNO. Long coat, win!