Socks are where a lot of men either play it completely safe or get it completely wrong. The safe version is fine. The wrong version involves novelty prints that look like they came in a Christmas cracker. What we’ve been looking for is the middle ground, which turns out to be a genuinely interesting place. A well chosen printed sock adds something to a turned up trouser without shouting about it. It works with a plain outfit because it gives the eye somewhere to land. The key is pattern scale and colour restraint. A busy sock in two colours works. A busy sock in six is a different problem entirely. We’ve also paid attention to construction because a thin sock that loses its shape after three washes is not worth your drawer space regardless of how good it looks on the model. These are prints we’d wear ourselves, which is the only filter that actually matters.