My socks are trapped in the 80s.
How can that be, you may ask?
Well, its just in the past year that I have come to the realization that people no longer match their socks to their shirt color. How this finally occurred to me after almost 19 years, I will never know. It just did. I looked around and, lo and behold, noticed that everyone's socks matched their pants or shoes, NOT their shirts. I looked down at my kelly green scrunch socks that matched my kelly green shirt and realized the true depth of my 80s dementia.
I have slowly switched to trying to match my socks to my pants, but just don't feel right about it. Like beating drugs or alcohol, beating the socks-matching-shirt addiction has been tumultuous. Its hard to see my periwinkle scrunch socks and russet colored bobbies sit unwanted in the drawer every day as the bland blue and black have their day in the sun.
Back in the day, we all strove laboriously to match to the shirt. I am sure this was begun by The Limited stores, which were obsessed with adding on accessories to every purchase. They just WOULD NOT let a customer walk out without the matching socks. When I worked there in the 80s, we had a gigantic sock wall with everything from pumpkin to violet to chatreuse as options.
People don't wear chatreuse socks too much anymore. No, they don't. Not much.
15 comments:
I loved matching my socks to my shirt in the 80s. Now, I just have white. :(
oooh, I wish you would have stood firm, moonmystic, now you are making life harder for all of us remaining sock matchers ;-)
Lol!! Lovely terry towelling socks in fluorescent green, yellow and pink were all the rage over here in the 80's, I still yearn for a pair!:0)
I must confess, I'm a bit of a 'matcher' still :)
yay, artisanne, one of us!!
I know what you mean!! When I worked in Contempo we had socks to match every single dang shirt in the store - every color you can think of - and we too had to pretty much FORCE the customers to buy them. They kept track of how many things each sales girl sold to each customer. You were supposed to have an average of 2.5 "units". If your average was less than that, you got written up and then fired. Can you believe that?! So, to save our jobs, we'd set the customer's stuff in piles at the register, and escort them to the accessories to try to get them to buy things there, and while they were busy doing that, we'd sneak and put matching socks and stuff on their piles to show them how matchy and cool they could look if they got the socks too. It totally worked too! Just seeing those orange socks laying on the folded orange t-shirt just made people wanna get 'em. But the best sales girl we had we nicknamed "The Pantie Queen" because she'd lay thongs and other underwear on the piles and somehow talk people into buying those. It was hilarious! I never had the guts to take it that far. I stuck with the socks. :-)
I know what you mean!! When I worked in Contempo we had socks to match every single dang shirt in the store - every color you can think of - and we too had to pretty much FORCE the customers to buy them. They kept track of how many things each sales girl sold to each customer. You were supposed to have an average of 2.5 "units". If your average was less than that, you got written up and then fired. Can you believe that?! So, to save our jobs, we'd set the customer's stuff in piles at the register, and escort them to the accessories to try to get them to buy things there, and while they were busy doing that, we'd sneak and put matching socks and stuff on their piles to show them how matchy and cool they could look if they got the socks too. It totally worked too! Just seeing those orange socks laying on the folded orange t-shirt just made people wanna get 'em. But the best sales girl we had we nicknamed "The Pantie Queen" because she'd lay thongs and other underwear on the piles and somehow talk people into buying those. It was hilarious! I never had the guts to take it that far. I stuck with the socks. :-)
Okay, totally weird! I don't know why it just published my comment twice - we're having a big wind storm right now, so I'm just gonna go ahead and blame it on THAT. (Then I'll feel less like a spaz).
Now let's see if it publishes me twice again....
Oh gosh, I remember working at the Wet Seal and pushing matching socks and hair scrunchies as well.
Seriously? We're not supposed to match our socks to our shirts anymore? DANG. Ok, I'll try the boring white socks just to say I gave it a try but, darn it, I'm not throwing away my purple socks with Donkey Kong on them...I have my limits!
haha 80squeen, donkey kong, you go!
cora, that's so funny, i had to do the exact same thing, and i swear it was also like 2.5 or something for us, but they never threatened to fire anybody that i know of ;-)
It was funny how people were suckered to buy those $4 a pair socks, which back then was really expensive (hell, it still is for us cheapos!)
I'm a "trapped in the 70's Mom" and I still match my socks to my shirt, sometimes :) I really wish toe socks would make a comeback!
Love your blog!
thanks good dirt, I hope you come back even though you are trapped a decade behind us! We need more 'old school' around here!
I am just glad when my socks match each other
haha demmi, that IS an accomplishment!!
Oh, I came across this site and it reminded me of you!
http://womensfashion.suite101.com/article.cfm/1980s_fashions_you_secretly_miss
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