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How to dress like a gentleman- A guide on the history of socks for the gentleman:dress like a true gent
SOCKS
HISTORY
Sock comes from soccus, Latin for a type of light shoe. Stocking comes from stock, a band of
fabric; the wooden stocks that locked up medieval felons by their legs is another use of the term.
The familiar knitted sock is both a modern phenomenon and an ancient one, but it seems to have
been lost in between, that being ever the way with socks. Socks knitted with a primitive cross-stitch
have turned up in 2500-year-old Egyptian burials and in some Middle Eastern sites. Sometime in
the 5th century knitting was introduced into Europe by the Arabs, but it did not loom large in hosiery
until long afterwards.
Stock and sock, the long and the short of it, were for hundreds of years ‘hose’, or leg-piping-pieces
of cloth or linen sewn together in the shape of the leg and either wrapped in place by binding, or
hitched to an upper garment by laced ties, called ‘points’, which were pulled for a tight fit.
Then came the Renaissance and the dramatic developments of tailoring and fitted garments, which,
in exposing the legs, brought hosiery into the light in bold and startling new way. By the 1390s,
hose were being joined at the top to form a primitive pair of tights, with a flapped pouch inserted at
the crotch. This was the codpiece, cod being a term for ‘bag’.
Chaucer was on hand to describe the provocative New Look through the eyes of his Chaterbury
pilgrims. The squire had blue hose with leather soles and black hose to wear with his slippers; a
parish clerk in the ‘Miller’s Tale’ wore hose of scarlet; others had speckled legs, their hose in
brightly contrasting colours. The Parson compared the effects of the frontal pouch to a bad case of
hernia and the swell of buttocks to “the hind-parts of a she-ape in the full moon”.
The codpiece, at times grossly stuffed and padded, remained in fashion for almost 200 years, until
the Elizabethans finally cast it aside for ‘trunk-hose’ (a pair of baggy trunks) worn with, at long last,
nicely knitted stockings. By 1589, clergyman William Lee had perfected his knitting frame, a
machine to knit stockings that performed well enough to remain in use with few improvements for
the next 250 years. The 16th century ended with gentlemen showing a full length of leg in knits in
every colour imaginable.
Stockings were at their fanciest in the 17th century, drawn up to cover the lower edge of knee
breeches and elaborately embroidered. Striped stockings were a feature of the 18th century, but
then the veil descended with the advent of trousers in the 19th century. The sight of breeches and
male calf encased in silk lingered in the twilight zone of Court dress, to be finally abandoned during
the Second World War.
HISTORY
Sock comes from soccus, Latin for a type of light shoe. Stocking comes from stock, a band of
fabric; the wooden stocks that locked up medieval felons by their legs is another use of the term.
The familiar knitted sock is both a modern phenomenon and an ancient one, but it seems to have
been lost in between, that being ever the way with socks. Socks knitted with a primitive cross-stitch
have turned up in 2500-year-old Egyptian burials and in some Middle Eastern sites. Sometime in
the 5th century knitting was introduced into Europe by the Arabs, but it did not loom large in hosiery
until long afterwards.
Stock and sock, the long and the short of it, were for hundreds of years ‘hose’, or leg-piping-pieces
of cloth or linen sewn together in the shape of the leg and either wrapped in place by binding, or
hitched to an upper garment by laced ties, called ‘points’, which were pulled for a tight fit.
Then came the Renaissance and the dramatic developments of tailoring and fitted garments, which,
in exposing the legs, brought hosiery into the light in bold and startling new way. By the 1390s,
hose were being joined at the top to form a primitive pair of tights, with a flapped pouch inserted at
the crotch. This was the codpiece, cod being a term for ‘bag’.
Chaucer was on hand to describe the provocative New Look through the eyes of his Chaterbury
pilgrims. The squire had blue hose with leather soles and black hose to wear with his slippers; a
parish clerk in the ‘Miller’s Tale’ wore hose of scarlet; others had speckled legs, their hose in
brightly contrasting colours. The Parson compared the effects of the frontal pouch to a bad case of
hernia and the swell of buttocks to “the hind-parts of a she-ape in the full moon”.
The codpiece, at times grossly stuffed and padded, remained in fashion for almost 200 years, until
the Elizabethans finally cast it aside for ‘trunk-hose’ (a pair of baggy trunks) worn with, at long last,
nicely knitted stockings. By 1589, clergyman William Lee had perfected his knitting frame, a
machine to knit stockings that performed well enough to remain in use with few improvements for
the next 250 years. The 16th century ended with gentlemen showing a full length of leg in knits in
every colour imaginable.
Stockings were at their fanciest in the 17th century, drawn up to cover the lower edge of knee
breeches and elaborately embroidered. Striped stockings were a feature of the 18th century, but
then the veil descended with the advent of trousers in the 19th century. The sight of breeches and
male calf encased in silk lingered in the twilight zone of Court dress, to be finally abandoned during
the Second World War.
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