Autumn of socks

[bunn]

Bought a pile of Tesco socks, despite my objection to Tesco on their strategy of absurd drama-mongering press releases, like the Marmite thing. Honestly, Tesco always run that kind of story and people always fall for it and share the latest story that is 100% calculated to catch the eye by being zeitgesty and a bit controversial,  support the Tesco brand narrative that they are the champions of cheapness and then softly and silently vanish away afterwards like a boojum.  All Tesco news stories are boojums, except for the odd one that they'd prefer you not to know about, involving accounting scandals.

Anyway, I went to the women's sock section, and it was full of small, elegant and often rather frilly or decorated socks.  None of them looked warm.  You could buy plain black ones, but they were thin and clearly designed for wearing with Smart Womanly Shoes, not stomping through mud in boots.

So I went to the mens section again and stocked up on thick, warm socks in attractive shades of blue, purple and green, for noticeably less than it would have cost me to buy thin chilly Woman Socks.  Fortunately I am blessed with relatively large feet.

FEET HAVE NO GENITALS, TESCO.   I really don't understand why all socks are not presented in one row, going from Very Small to Very Big. I don't object to the existence of thin socks with sparkly kittens on, but I reckon that at least 80% of dogwalkers I meet are female, and there was not a single sock in the 'women's  section' that was well-adapted to that sort of life.


ETA: yeah, yeah, I know.  Don't give them money and then go away and moan about them on the internet : take the money elsewhere to someone who does it right.  But I'm SO lazy and also I have this internet right here to whinge into! 

Comments

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear!

Votes for Practical Clothing for Women!

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, socks appeared to be an international problem :)
My feet (as all the rest of me) are small, so sometimes I have a problem to buy plain, one-coloured socks.
A friend of my friend (f2m) once got arrested for the fight with a seller, who refused to sell him men's socks (he didn't look quite manly back then).

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Packs of plain black socks are also for nurses and their sensible black shoes. When the daughter was training I bought multiple packs. As a mark of defiance she moved onto black socks with coloured heels and toes, which couldn't been seen.

Tesco - home of healthy eating (Haha). We've got a Brownie trip there coming up - I hesitated about arranging it, but decided it was a free trip and we might as well get something out of the giant local store, since it's not likely to increase its sales when it already dominates the area.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I recently bought men's sneakers for the same reason. Really, the things intended for men are less likely to fall apart with reasonable use. They just last longer. I also am blessed with large feet.

As I get older I am more and more likely to shop in the men's section. I am less tolerant of having my money wasted.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

adaese has bought "mens" socks before now.

[howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com]

I like your Tesco layout plan better than the one currently in use! :-)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

With smallish feet, I wear women's thin black socks, and when I'm going out on a walk, wear a pair of thick walking socks on top of them. But I fled in disarray last time I looked at a display of women's socks, since none of them were just "socks." Instead, they had a confusing array of adjectives which caused me to lose confidence and worry that these adjective socks had some hidden feature that meant they wouldn't work properly with normal shoes. I wonder if men's sock displays are full of adjective socks, or if they get the chance to buy just socks.

[topum.livejournal.com]

I still get my socks from Pakeman Catto & Carter (and all of my brothers do too). They don't do ladies' but one of my sisters in law liked them so much that she kept stealing them from my brother until it dawned on her that she could buy their men's socks for herself and she does now. And they are not shy with the colours either.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

If you know someone who has a Costco card, their hiking socks are great.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

Fortunately I am blessed with relatively large feet.

When I had to buy Emergency Socks on my recent UK trip the only size I could find that'd fit me was "Boys: 7-10" so I ended up with Iron Man on my feet.

All this to say, buying socks can be a surprising hassle. It's socks! It shouldn't be that hard! And yet.

[rustica.livejournal.com]

Can I add to this - Wellington boots! I have really chunky calf muscles (no, really, I do; it's the only part of me that's solid muscle) and there's not a single knee-height pair of wellies anywhere that I can wear. I have to wear ankle-height-wellies instead and stay out of the mud. What's the point of wellies when you have to stay out of the mud?? I can't buy the men's wellies because I wear a size 4 shoe. Any welly big enough to fit over my calves doesn't come in a small enough shoe size to fit me.

What do other women like me do - do they buy men's wellies, and men's socks, and pack the space in the socks and the wellies with extra pairs of men's socks? (Maybe that's what those thin pairs of women's socks are for, now I think of it!)

[apel.livejournal.com]

Socks are a bit of an issue for me too. I like my socks colorful and going up well over the ankle. Most people here in California wear no-shows, which are way too cold for me. So I buy socks on eBay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/221147784174?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&var=520120679068&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT). I have yet to find light blue ones that I like, though. They all seem to skew toward turquoise and I prefer either a true blue or one that's toned warm.