It was December 2017. The whole team agreed: if there was one “disposable” garment whose life we wanted to extend, it was socks.

Not just another old sock

So we sent you a short questionnaire to help us design socks you wouldn’t be throwing away any time soon, and more than 2,000 of you answered the call.

First, how long do they last? Less than a year for 40% of you. We’d expected worse. But we also figured we could do better.

Next, you made it very clear that the two main problems are 1/ your big toe breaking free and 2/ the heel wearing through. Many of you also mentioned the elastic losing its stretch and wear around the tendon, just where the edge of the shoe rubs.

As for style: unsurprisingly, you asked for classic mid-calf socks, unribbed, mainly in blue and black, although quite a few of you also dreamed of bright, original colours (a rather brave request, we thought, given our current range of colours).

We read, sorted and analysed every bit of your feedback, then set off, armed with all that, to find a factory to develop socks that last.

Our saviour is French

Usually, we look for our factories in Portugal. Up until now, that’s where we found the best partners. But for socks, it seemed a shame to cross the border.

If there’s one thing the French know how to do (besides croissants and strikes), it’s socks.

You may be sick of hearing it, but even in Europe, and even in France, it’s not easy to find factories that can do quality and are willing to develop a new product for a small brand (yes, sorry to shatter the myth: we’re a small brand). After meeting several factories, we found one that was a great fit: Atelier Joly.

First, because its reputation preceded it: the company holds the Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant label (a French state label for heritage craftsmanship) for the excellence of its know-how. Second, because the people in this workshop were keen to do R&D with us, not just slap our logo on a sock they’d been making for 1,000 other brands for 10 years. Finally, when it came to values, we really were on the same page: quality, ethics and traceable sourcing are part of their everyday vocabulary.

And the story of this little company is brilliant. At 26, the boss brought 50 goats back from Texas and started France’s very first mohair production. The business grew, and in 2007 it bought the subcontractor that knitted its socks, then in 2013 the one that made its sweaters, just as both were about to go under. And this factory doesn’t just save local jobs and know-how, either. When farmers in the area decide to get proper value from their sheep’s wool instead of selling it at a loss (which happens in 99% of cases in France), Atelier Joly lends them a hand.

Making a tough sock (without Kevlar)

We tested various solutions to fix the dozen or so problems you’d reported (fun fact: our very first prototype got a hole in it after a 25 km trail run).

We wanted a fine, smart sock you could wear in town, and here are the solutions we came up with.

Cordura for durability

The biggest problem we faced was wear and tear at the toes and heel. For that, we chose Cordura: a type of polyamide four times more resistant than the others, generally used in military clothing. We used a very dense knit in these areas, which take a real beating from calluses and badly trimmed toenails.

Fil d’Écosse for comfort

We also wanted to use as many natural materials as possible, which meant cotton. Because it’s softer and makes you sweat less. When it comes to cotton yarn, the best balance of strength and softness is fil d’Écosse (known in English as lisle). Basically, it’s long-staple combed cotton (so, excellent quality) that has been mercerised, meaning treated to make it stronger and hold colour better. Goodbye pilling, fading and other signs of premature ageing. The other advantage: unlike synthetics and poor-quality cotton, it stays soft, even with time and many washes.

Sole and tendon reinforcements

Next question: how do you stop holes forming in the sole and at the Achilles tendon? We first tried knitting the Cordura on the outside of the sock, so that your skin would touch the cotton while the friction zones were reinforced with synthetic fibre. But the Cordura yarn wasn’t fine enough. So we replaced it with a finer, very high-quality polyamide.

A good-quality cuff

To stop your socks slumping down around your ankles or strangling your calves, we did two things: we added a strong elastane thread throughout the body of the sock so it stays put everywhere, and we didn’t skimp on the elastic cuff that holds up the top (still, be careful not to tumble-dry them at the highest temperature: there’s always a risk that the elastane melts and the sock loses its stretch, as with any garment containing elastane).

"Linked" toe seams

Some of you complained about toe seams that rub and irritate. So we chose an ultra-fine seam, closed stitch by stitch (known as "linking"). Traditionally, this was done by hand ("hand-linking"). But our workshop has invested in a state-of-the-art machine that does it even better. The result? Flawless quality, and no annoying ridge when you put your shoes on.

Finally, as well as choosing only OEKO-TEX®-certified yarns (meaning free from substances harmful to the environment and to your health), we set up 100% traceable, local production: Cordura (Italy), fil d’Écosse (Italy), polyamide (Spain), elastane (France), knitting (France), making-up (France), cardboard band (France).

It broke every record

Once we had our final prototype, we put it through the ultimate test: laboratory durability testing. With a sock, there are two things to test: how firmly the elastic holds and how well it resists abrasion. To have a benchmark, we asked the lab to test a Swiss sock as well, reputedly the top performer in durability tests.
On elastic hold (making sure it’s neither too tight nor too loose), our team can relax: our sock scored 1.9 kPa, where the comfort zone is between 1 and 2.
For abrasion resistance, the method used is the "Martindale" test. Fabric is cut from two areas (the sole and the toe) and placed in a machine that rubs them until a thin patch, then a hole, appears. The result is given as a number of cycles: the higher the number, the tougher the sock.

After running the machine for half a day, the lab called us with the results for the competitor's sock: approximately 10,000 cycles, which (according to them) is a good result. Meanwhile, our sock hadn’t budged.

We asked them to keep the machine running for another 10,000 cycles to see how far our sock would go. Still intact. We moved up to 50,000. The lab called us back to say there was still no sign of thinning. So we told them to go up to 150,000 cycles. And here are the results they sent us:

Even the lab was blown away by these results. A bit of googling shows that other brands have made super-tough socks before us, reaching an (already very respectable) score of 49,000 cycles… 3 times fewer than ours.

This product was tested on real people

Alongside that, we handed out our socks to friends with notoriously sock-shredding feet (the ones who tell you “I get holes in mine after one wear”) with a single instruction: wear them a lot, wash them a lot. The whole team pitched in too, and since some of our prototypes were white, we didn’t always look our sharpest. But this step really matters: it tells us whether anything’s off. The verdict? Nothing’s off.

Voilà

So now you know all about how we made these socks.

We’re launching them at 12 euros. It’s the lowest price we can offer, with our margin cut as far as it will go.

It’s the price of quality materials and skilled labour. It’s the price of Oeko-Tex and of made in France. It’s the price of socks you won’t need to replace every five minutes.

January 2022 update:

• Our cotton socks have been improved quite a bit (comfier cuff, organic cotton, adjusted height, new colours)
• Using the same construction, we’ve launched ankle socks and wool socks
• All these styles are also available in the women’s collection

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Who are we to say this? 

You’re reading La Mode à l’Envers, a blog run by the clothing brand Loom. The textile industry is coming apart at the seams, and the planet is footing the bill. So whatever we manage to understand about this industry, we try to explain here. Because making clothes that last is good, but revealing, sharing and inspiring is even more powerful.

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