Monthly Archives: February 2015

Valentine’s Day is a week from tomorrow and it means there are only eight more days to decide what to do to show the one you love that you care, not that I would ever imply that any of us aren’t prepared or know exactly what we’re doing. To take our minds off of the ideas of what to get our loved ones, let’s take a look at the origins of the modern day candy industrial complex.

The origins of Valentine’s Day go back to the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia. Honoring the she wolf mother of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. The festival started with an animal sacrifice and a footrace of young men who would whip women in the crowd with strips of the skin of the sacrifice in order to bestow fertility on those that were struck. For anyone that remembers reading Julius Caesar in high school literature, the beginning hopefully makes way more sense now.

Pope Gelasius officially declared February 14th as Saint Valentine’s Day in honor Saint Valentine.  Multiple clerics were named Saint Valentine, but the namesake is usually attributed to Saint Valentine who lived during the third century under Emperor Claudius. Claudius outlawed the institution of marriage under the idea that single men made better soldiers. Valentine defied this and continued to marry couples in secret until he was eventually discovered and sentenced to be executed.  While in prison, couples would visit Valentine and slip him notes and flowers through the bars of his cage. Supposedly, on his way to the execution platform one admirer handed him a note that read, “For my valentine”.

Valentine’s Day didn’t become associated outright with love and romance until some time in 1300s. Once it did though, it evolved into the Valentine’s Day we know today over the next 500 years with the first mass produced Valentine’s Day cards being produced in 1840. These days Americans buy nearly 180 million roses, 35 million boxes of chocolates and spend roughly 14 billion dollars annually on the holiday.

If everyone else is giving their loved ones candy and flowers, we say be a trailblazer and show how strong your love is with something that will last. Socks! You can be on the nose with it and tell them that you love them or slip into something a little more comfortable.

It seems odd to think about, but there are definitely some socks out there that are more famous and influential than most of us out there. When you think about how little appreciation the average pair of socks get, maybe this will change your mind or at least give you a boost at sock based trivia.

Kurt Schilling’s Bloody Sock

In the 2004 Kurt Schilling had surgery to repair a ruptured tendon in his ankle and was fully expected to be done for the rest of the season. Instead of sitting out and resting a surgically rebuilt ankle, doctors braced the area of the surgically repaired tendon with a wall of stitches and Schilling went on to pitch in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series where he ruptured his stitches and famously finished the game with the bloody sock. If that doesn’t seem tough enough, he simply had it sutured shut and pitched again in Game 2 of the World Series only for the wound to open again.

Lamb Chop

Lamb Chop was a sock puppet created by Shari Lewis who were the main characters of Lamb Chop’s Play-Along, a children’s show that ran on PBS from 1992 to 1997. Through the influence of her show Lamb Chop was given the opportunity to speak before Congress on the issue children’s television protections. After Lamb Chop retired from television she began performing shows primarily for the US military and was made a three star general.

Mr. Socko

For those of you old enough and so inclined to remember professional wrestling in the 90s, Mr. Socko is going to be a name you probably haven’t thought about in a long time, but will remember how a gym sock with a face drawn on it became a celebrity in certain circles. Mr. Socko was the creation of the wrestler Mankind and was simply a sock with a face drawn on it that Mankind would have conversations with and occasionally stuff down the mouth of his opponents as a finishing move.

Socks the Cat

Alright, this one probably breaks the spirit of this one a little bit, but Socks the Cat was a celebrity in the 90s. Socks was the official First Pet to the Clinton family and was often seen on correspondence from the first family. Children who visited the White House were guided by an animated version of Socks along the official tour. Socks managed to get enough fame to become a point of contention with a Republican Representative over the use of staff and resources to handle all of the mail addressed to Socks. After the Clinton’s left the house Socks moved in with the Presidential Secretary, Betty Currie until he passed away.

As fashion keeps moving forward we see some innovations that stay with us and are generally considered really smart, like the evolution of the skirt, and some that well aren’t, looking at you here JNCO. With that in mind, Japanese manufacturer Erimaki Sox has just released a new line of collared socks available with a lace, button down, or sailor suit styled collar. The lace collar is available in a number of colors with each having its own fanciful needlework pattern while the eye catching sailor style is available in just white and navy, but I want to focus on the button down style for a moment. With the button down collar style being available in a number of formal business colors, it seems like something out of an early 20th century “What will the world be like in the year 2000?” prompt that adding collars to our socks would be the peak of professional dress as we jet to our moon offices in our flying cars.

So what do you think about these socks? Are they simply a cute, novelty piece for impressing friends at parties and casual events or the future of business attire throughout the world?  If you’re not willing to bet on these taking the world by storm, but are still in need of either some traditional dress socks or attention grabbing novelty socks we have a wide selection of both.