Your socks are showing your age

Spence, now a 35-year-old project manager and content creator based in Augusta, Ga., has at this point been wearing that very same “no-show” style of socks for nearly two decades. A few weeks ago, though, Spence’s wife, Allison — with whom he often films TikToks about family and parenting life — came home with a surprise for him: She handed him a package of crew socks.

Spence is one of untold numbers of millennials who are waking up to a grim new reality on their TikTok pages: Their socks are making them look old.

As younger consumers have gravitated away from the faux-sockless look and toward the ‘80s and ‘90s style that emphasized a tall, sometimes even slouchy sock visible far above the sneaker, retailers have felt the shift. Adidas has seen an increase in web traffic to its crew socks page in the past year. Under Armour said international market mid-length sock sales have increased from about a third to about half of sock sales from 2019 to 2023, with North America showing a similar uptick over the past year.

The debate has consumed media in recent months. Gen Z celebrities such as Kaia Gerber and Lori Harvey have been out and about sporting crew socks with sneakers and — in Sabrina Carpenter’s case — heels. Headlines warn about “toxic sock syndrome” and a sock war between the generations, while fashion writers have shared advice on how to up your sock game and take advantage of the crew sock trend.

Gen Z may like crew socks, but they’ve remained relatively silent on the issue on TikTok, and don’t seem to care when asked on other parts of social media. Meanwhile, the most popular TikToks on the trend war are explainer videos and millennials on the defensive. “This country is in a crisis,” wrote menswear writer and commentator Derek Guy on X after a poll from the sportswear company Bennetts revealed 50.3 percent of its voters preferred “normal” crew socks. Other videos showed Generation Y bravely wearing hidden socks in public, reluctantly wearing taller socks to stay on trend, or, like Spence, creating makeshift ankle socks by folding longer socks under their heels.

Now, millennials find themselves staring down a difficult choice: cling to the beloved sockless look that now strikes some as geriatric, or give them up in favor of what feels like an homage to Steve Urkel — or their own parents. “I remember putting them on for the first time,” Spence remembers, “and I was like, ‘No. I look like my dad.’”

Justin Jordan, a 29-year-old content creator and video producer in Columbus, Ohio, has long been a bare ankle advocate. When his wife decided to wear crew socks to the gym earlier this year, influenced by social media videos advising her on how not to look like a millennial, he wasn’t moved. He opted to avoid tan lines by sticking to his usual footwear.

“Why would I want to look like a child?” Jordan later exclaimed in a TikTok. “… You think I’m going to take fashion advice from a person who just got on this earth?”

Jenna Barclay, a 37-year-old Los Angeles content creator who makes comedic videos contrasting current trends and Y2K fashion, remembers how middle and high-schoolers in the early aughts endlessly made fun of kids whose socks covered their ankles. And don’t even think about crew socks with sandals: That was a “cardinal sin,” she said.

While no-show socks served as Gen Y’s counterculture from their parents and grandparents, it was likely also influenced by athletic wear.

Tennis, for example, has contributed quite a lot over the past century to mainstream fashion — and Deirdre Clemente, a professor of history at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who specializes in fashion, notes that no-show socks have been a mainstay in women’s tennis since the late 1990s. A low-cut or no-show sock on players at the time such as Anna Kournikova would, indeed, accentuate the attractive qualities of a tennis physique: In addition to probably being “less sweaty,” Clemente says, “it’s going to give you a longer leg,” and emphasize the shape of the calves.

Barclay says that while these style debates seem frivolous, millennials’ defensiveness could be rooted in their attempts to stay relevant as they age.

“It is hard to get older and it’s hard to accept, especially as a woman, that you’re no longer the focal point of society and culture and things like trends,” she said. “… The first reaction of being shocked and horrified is kind of just a blow to the ego because you realize, ‘oh, these trends aren’t made for me anymore. They’re made to appeal to a totally different audience.’”

Jordan has decided to stand his ground: “You’re telling me that my socks will help point me out to other millennials and older people? It will separate me from them? Good,” he said in his TikTok.

Spence, after making an initial good-faith effort to switch to crew socks, now estimates he wears them 10 percent of the time when he wears sneakers. “I think once you get kids, it’s like, I don’t have to worry about being trendy anymore,” he said. “I just worry about what’s for dinner.”