Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: Want a style update? Pull your socks up!

The Guardian

04-06-2025

If you get food in your teeth at dinner, you want someone to let you know, right? Of course you do. It is so annoying to realise on a bathroom break, after pudding, that for the past two hours you have been unwittingly showing the remains of your starter with every smile.
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However. It is also undeniably the case that when someone does the right thing, letting you know that you might want to check a mirror, that moment can be awkward. Especially if you don't know each other well, the spinach-eater might feel embarrassed and flustered and even, irrationally, a bit cross.
To be clear, dear reader, you don't have anything in your teeth that I am aware of. The point I am trying to establish is that if something about your look isn't working, and you haven't noticed, then a friend who points this out is doing the right thing. Right? Hold that thought.
Now look down at your feet and ankles. Are you wearing white trainers with bare ankles?
Five years ago, white trainers and bare ankles, with either a midi-dress or an ankle-length jean, was a great look. But now, it makes you look dated. Next time you are out, look around you, and you will notice that no one under 30 wears this any more. It has become a very middle-aged look. The 21st-century equivalent of going out in a house coat. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with middle-age. I am in my 50s, and proud of it, and very much not about to start dressing like a teenager. But white trainers and bare ankles are not where style is at any more. I'm just trying to be helpful.
This is all extremely discombobulating. It wasn't that long ago that this look was cool. Phoebe Philo wore it. Rihanna wore it. Michelle Obama wore it. A flat white shoe with a flash of ankle was the definitive grown-up-but-still-got-it signoff, and it worked with any outfit. It was neat without being twee, casual but still elegant. But unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past year, you will have noticed the stratospheric rise of the sock. Generation Z love a sock. Socks – sporty, ribbed, marl, but very much designed to be seen – are where fashion is at. This has been bewildering to those of us who came of age in an era when the only acceptable socks were ones designed to make it look as if you weren't wearing any.
Let's break this down. You can still wear a white trainer, but it will look more modern now if it's a bit chunky. If you love a trainer with a neat profile, you can stick with the shape, but switch to colour. Either way, you need to wear socks. You can swap trainers for loafers, which have a similar silhouette to an old-school sleek trainer – but, yes, you guessed it, still socks. A bare ankle is just not cute.
Am I exaggerating? A little, yes. The flat white and no-socks look has not yet disappeared. But then, people still wear fascinators to weddings and it doesn't make them acceptable. The Duchess of Cambridge still wears white trainers and no socks with floral dresses, but a) to be fair, she's probably had more pressing matters to contend with over the past year, and b) while she always looks charming, I'm not sure she's exactly our north star here. On the school run, this look is starting to give … velvet alice band, if you know what I mean.
The good news is that, when you get your eye in, wearing a different shoe and teaming it with a sock is an easy, cost-effective and practical way to update your wardrobe. Socks are inexpensive, and comfortable.
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Seriously, I'm not trying to get you into a cropped top here, guys, lighten up. You can wear a bouncy white trainer with a ribbed sport sock, while a black loafer looks pleasingly dandyish with a fine white sock, or elegant with a ribbed sock in a neutral. You are free to ignore me, of course. But I thought you would want to know.
Hair and makeup: Delilah Blakeney using Olaplex and Nars. Model: Jen at Milk Management. T-shirt, £170, Alemais. Shorts, £78, and necklace, £48, Anthropologie. Loafers, £295, Russell & Bromley. Socks, £8.99, HM