“Did you see what is on your door?” my roommate asked me after I returned home from the Memorial Day weekend. I walked to my backyard hut to find a sticker of none other than socks and sandals. My roomie found it over the weekend and, as most of my friends would do, thought of me.
Few things confuse me as much as the societal ridicule directed toward socks and sandals. I understand the disapproval of many fashions – the Uggs and skirts faze needs to go in my opinion – and others are certainly outside the norm, like a three foot pink Mohawk made with Elmer’s glue, but why do so many people have to be haters on my socks and sandals.
I know it is silly to pledge an entire commentary column to such a simple facet of life, but this has been 10 years in the making. In seventh grade, I began wearing white sports socks with my black adidas. The reaction from peers was comparable to coming to school with a two-foot-long strand of toilet paper on my shoe and a “kick me” sign on my back. Many people let it be known that wearing socks and sandals just is not cool. This is something to be expected in middle school, when awkward stages come and go like the tide, but here I am a full decade later still hearing the same old stuff.
Anyone who has sported socks and sandals knows the practicality of it. Sandals are comfortable, something most can agree on, and liberating in the fact that there are light and can be kicked on and off with ease. Adding socks to the equation is “simply an extension of this freedom, extending our sandal-wearing into colder weather,” as blogger Tom Munnecke puts it. “I think it is time to take back our freedom to wear socks with sandals, and throw off the chains of our oppressors who want to tell us wear.”
Do not be fooled though, socks and sandals is not just to compensate for cold whether. A breathable pair of crew socks with sandals is superb summer ware, especially for those with feet that tend to perspire in sandals when the sun is scorching. Also, according to a listing in urban dictionary, it is the “The gangster way for wearing sandals,” says J-lizzle of Albany, New York. “The only time you will catch a gangster wearing sandals is if its summer time and they are wearing some crispy (white) socks with some adidas or jordan or nike sandals (sic).” I guess I am only half gangster because I wear socks both summer and winter. (For the record, I am also known to strut around in low-cut socks and penny loafers, but that is a whole other column.)
Being a socks-and-sandals person is not the most oppressive minority to be in, I will continue to wear them no matter how many times you call me a dork, and it has turned into a sort of iconic feature for me – there was a team named “Socks and Sandals” in my honor during a flip cup tournament earlier this year.
Still, I’m always looking for the few other socks-and-sandals people so we can exchange support in our mission to not let the fashion police get us down. So you can imagine the excitement that struck me when I scrolled down the “Home of Socks and Sandals the world over” (www.sandalandsoxer.co.uk), which features hundreds of pictures of people of all variety wearing the comfortable good stuff. There is even of picture of a man walking down a crowded sidewalk wearing nothing but (no pun intended) socks and sandals. Now that is what I call a role model.
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