Most men treat socks as an afterthought and then wonder why the whole look feels slightly off from the ankle down. With trainers especially, what you put on your foot matters more than people admit. A bad sock, either swamped by the shoe or pulling awkwardly at the ankle, reads as careless even when everything else is considered. The trainer has become the default shoe for a huge amount of men’s dressing, from weekend casual through to smart casual territory where the lines have genuinely blurred. That means the sock doing the job needs to be sorted too.

We have been looking specifically at styles with real character. Ribbed textures, tonal patterns, interesting yarn weights that give the sock a presence without being loud about it. Nothing novelty. Nothing that draws attention to itself for the wrong reasons. These are socks that reward the kind of attention most men save for everything except their socks. Get this right and it quietly improves everything above it.