Susana Yourcheck keeps a basket of mismatched socks in her laundry room, hoping that the missing match will eventually reappear. The pile is getting smaller these days, but not because the solitary socks are magically being reunited with their mates.
The credit for the smaller stash goes to her two teenage daughters, who no longer fuss to find socks that match. That’s because fashionable tweens and teens favor a jamboree of solids, colors and patterns on their feet.
“All my friends do it. Everyone in school wears them this way,” says 15-year-old Amelia Yourcheck.
For laundry-folding parents, the best match is sometimes a mismatch.
Generations of adults have cringed at their children’s fashion choices, suffering through bell bottoms, crop tops, piercings and tattoos. Socks have gone through various iterations of coolness: knee-high, no-see, wild patterns, socks worn with sandals, and no socks at all.
But the current trend has advantages for parents like Ms. Yourcheck. She has long been flummoxed by the mystery of socks that “disappear to the land of nowhere.”
“I’m not going to lie—[the mismatched look] bothers me. But I’m also kind of happy because at least we get some use out of them,” says Ms. Yourcheck, who is 40 years old and lives in Holly Springs, N.C.
“It definitely makes laundry way easier because they just go in a pile and you don’t have to throw the odd ones away,” agrees Washington, D.C., resident Jennifer Swanson Prince, whose 15-year-old daughter, Eleni, rocks the unmatched look. “And if we are lucky, the pile will go in a drawer.”
Some parents say they first noticed the trend a few years ago. Some saw girls whip off their shoes at a bat mitzvah celebration and go through a basket of mismatched socks that were supplied by the hosts for more comfortable dancing.
For some teenage fashionistas, however, the style dictates that certain rules be followed. Among the most important: The socks must always be more or less the same length—no mixing a knee high with a short one. And while patterns can be combined, clashing seasons—as with snowflakes and flowers—are frowned upon.
The trend is so popular that retailers sell socks that go together, but don’t really go together.
“Matching is mundane, but mixing patterns and colors is monumentally cool,” states the website of LittleMissMatched, which has stores in New York, Florida and California. The company sells socks in sets of three that often sport the same pattern—stars, animal prints, argyles, but in different colors.
A set of three lightning-bolt knee socks—one in red, pink and yellow, one in green, pink and yellow, and one in dark blue, light blue and melon—sells for $13.33 on the company’s website.
Some customers, says Andrew Arguiarro, who runs LittleMissMatched for Delta Galil Industries Ltd, a company in Israel, “go to the extreme and cross match different packs.”
Mr. Arguiarro says the trend is also catching on with men and women. About 70% of the sock styles now come in adult sizes.
The mismatch mania is also stretching beyond the foot. Designer Nina Ricci ’s 2015 collection featured mismatched earrings at Fashion Week in Paris last fall, and online retailer Uncommon Goods sells mismatched cashmere fingerless hand warmers for $48. A growing number brides are encouraging their attendants to wear colors and styles that suit them as individuals rather than a dress prescribed for all of them.
When it comes to unmatched socks, few parents are more familiar with the topic than Jonah Staw, who co-founded LittleMissMatched in San Francisco in 2003 with some friends as a way to encourage youngsters to be creative.
That all happened before Mr. Staw was a parent. Now, as the father of 1-1/2 year-old Poppy and 3-year-old Amelie, he sees other advantages to mismatched socks than just letting children embrace their fun side.
“In the end, it is sure easier for me because I do the wash and just dump everything in a drawer,” says Mr. Staw, who sold the company in 2008.
Even though Mr. Staw isn’t associated with LittleMissMatched anymore, he still regularly receives solicitations from would-be entrepreneurs who are tapping into the fad. “Just the other day, I was sent mismatched leggings from someone who thinks they have a genius opportunity for me,” he said.
When Ashley Connors was growing up in New Hampshire, lone family socks went into a laundry bag or basket that was known as “the sock monster.” Every now and then, her mother would haul out the bag and Ms. Connors and her three siblings would have a “sock-matching party” where they would try to find pairs.
These days, Ms. Connors is chief executive of a Brooklyn, N.Y., company that sells mismatched mittens and socks uniting two creatures that usually don’t go together, such as a shark and a penguin. The company, called Vs. Stuff, plans to launch a new line of children’s socks in the fall that feature unions of cats and dogs, and ladybugs and caterpillars.
“Parents like the fact that kids can choose” their own pairs, says Ms. Connors.
Despite the convenience come laundry time, some parents think the trend is more sloppy than cool. In a recent posting, one mother wrote, “I’m sorry, but no matter how trendy the mismatched socks fad may be, it’s not OK.”
Even those who aren’t crazy about the trend figure that unmatched socks rank pretty low on the list of things that they could be battling over with teenagers.
“I am less concerned about the socks than if I had a kid who wore super-short skirts,” says Ms. Prince. As for companies that sell mismatched socks, she and her daughter remain perplexed.
She recalls her daughter asking on a recent trip to New York, “Why would I have to buy mismatched socks? I already have mismatched socks.”
Write to Robin Sidel at robin.sidel@wsj.com
http://www.wsj.com/articles/socks-are-no-match-for-this-teen-clothing-trend-1424489257?mod=WSJ_article_EditorsPicks_4
questions)
1. How do you see the trend wearing mismatched socks ?
2. Are you interested in wearing mismatched socks,when you go outside?
3. Do you think what the merits are by having mismatched socks ?