No ordinary sock

 

It's true. I have big feet. So sue me. I always had big feet. Currently size 11, they are happy in size 12 shoes.

What you see above, gentle reader, is a standard issue size 11 sock.

It isn't the lower one. The top one is a generous size 11 and has served me pretty well. So the lower one is... er, what ? Crafted for a yeti and salvaged abandoned on some desolate Tibetan trail ?

No, it's a Dickies size 11.

Look, I know nothing about socks and sock technology, and don't often think about them. But this is surely no ordinary sock. It's a monster sock of epic, almost mythic proportions. It would have had a leading role in the Iliad if the Greeks had known about socks. It would have belonged to some glittering hero, swathed in armour and whizzing round in a swanky chariot.

A sock such as this might even had had its own epic written about it.

The trouble is (touching earth briefly again), that it won't fit in any of my shoes. Well, it will, of course, but not while my foot is in it. Either it makes my toes feel as if they are surrounded by foot bullies, or else the heel is somewhere around the back of my knee. Neither is a good look.

Wearing said sock with sandals would probably get me arrested, and not just by the fashion police.

It isn't just designed for the fuller foot, for the slightly aging foot that just likes to be cosy and cut no dash at the dance-halls. It's isn't created fort any known foot, wth the possible exception of one that got caught under a road roller and miraculously survived, doomed to wander the planet forever in search of a specialist cobbler.

Hard to imagine the foot Dickies had in mind. Maybe the machine got carried away and coughed out a couple of thousand before anyone noticed.

Now I am HUGE Dickies fan. The make all my best and most comfortable outfits. For sheer elegant durability, shrugging off of stains, and adaptabilty, Dickies cannot be beaten. But clearly their sock technology needs a slight tweak, a teensy recalibration. Sock-wise I have some tiny doubts about Dickies.