Just what is our national problem with socks and sandals? To hear some people go on about it, you’d think it was a crime right up there with paedophilia and mass murder. When, a few years ago, it was discovered that the Romans might have worn socks with their sandals, the strength of public reaction implied that their achievement in having bequeathed us the aqueduct, sanitation, roads and irrigation ought suddenly to be rendered null and void. There’s even a website — www.sandalandsoxer.co.uk — the modern-day equivalent of the stocks, designed publicly to humiliate with embarrassing pictures anyone caught wearing the dreaded footwear combo.
But are socks and sandals really such a terrible thing? At the risk of being pelted with rotten tomatoes, I’d say not, and this isn’t just a fashion-pundit-being-gratuitously-controversial thing going on here. The truth is, it is perfectly possible to carry off this reviled Nuts-in-May look. All you need is to be youthful, good-looking, utterly self-possessed and totally fearless. For the rest of us, however, the law stands. Socks and sandals may serve any number of functions, such as stopping your feet freezing, sweating or chafing, and they may look quite attractive if you get the combination right, but you’re still not allowed to wear them together. Not ever. Society has decreed it.
Our difficulty with socks and sandals is part of a wider problem we have in this country, namely: how to look good when the weather gets hot. As a rule, the moment the sun comes out our dress sense melts. We reach into our drawers for the trusty shorts we have worn for years; team them with the first T-shirt to hand and wear them with any old shoes and socks as if, somehow, the niceness of the weather relieves us of all obligation to consider issues such as style, proportion or colour co-ordination.
“It’s what comes of having only 50 days of sunshine a year,” says Mark Budd, a designer for the clothing label and i. “We’re not used to it. In Italy, people will have as many pairs of shorts as they do jeans. But over here, we think it’s OK just to have two pairs.”
And what’s so sad, says Oliver Spencer, also a designer, is that there was a time when Britain used to set the international standard for looking good in shorts.
“Back in the days of Empire it was our work wear. A pair of khaki shorts and a matching shirt — that was the English uniform for all weathers and we looked great in it.”
Unfortunately, as our Empire vanished, so did our understanding of how to dress properly for hot climes. By no means has the British male lost his enthusiasm for slipping into shorts the moment the temperature rises above freezing.
But what he is now incapable of doing is carrying the look off with any style or dignity. It’s why, come summer, women find it so hard to take men seriously. If it’s not the sandal’n’sock combo they’re giggling at, then it’ll be that our shorts are too garish (anything floral) or too “gay” (three-quarter length), or so baggy that the wearer looks like a Scoutmaster, or so stubby that the wearer’s giblets keep popping out in the manner of Bob Mortimer’s spoof of Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin, or so bog-standard Gap that he looks like an identikit middle-aged, middle-class dad.
What this doesn’t mean is that we should stick to long trousers. Shorts, as Spencer points out, are a joyous, life-affirming thing. “When you put them on, there’s an immediate feel-good factor. They are comfy, they give you space to breathe, they make you feel like you’re on holiday.”
They do need, however, to be worn with forethought.One thing worth considering is a pedicure, like the one I was given at Nickel in Covent Garden by an attractive Polish girl called Aneta. You might think that a pedicure is ludicrously camp, and you’d be right: Aneta confirmed that the majority of her clientele was homosexual. But the reason for this is that gay men understand the tiny but important details in a way that most straight men don’t. One of those details is this: if you’re going to put your bare feet on display after they’ve spent a whole winter cooped up in your smelly trainers, for God’s sake make sure that they are fit for public scrutiny.
It’s not something that would have occurred to me, I must admit. When I’ve looked outside and thought: “Hey. It’s Birkenstock weather”, I can’t say I’ve ever been hit by the immediate follow-up thought: “Goodness. I’d better buff up my toenails and peel back those cuticles.” Girls, though, like gay men, do notice those things. So if you’re to stand a chance of pulling either, a pedicure isn’t a bad idea.
It even serves a health function, so Aneta told me. Apparently, that business of scraping back the cuticle means that the most newly grown part of your toenail gets a chance to breathe.
So that’s your feet sorted, what about the footwear? The best option is sandals: Birkenstocks — no longer the preserve of yoghurt-weaving beardies — or the new Clarks models with closed toes (ergo less risk of stomp misery on crowded trains), or a pair of Tevas — their synthetic material means they’re good for wading through puddles but it also means your feet tend to get a bit smelly.
There are those for whom the sandal remains a step too near to hippydom. However trainers, most people’s usual default, look deeply rubbish with shorts and are not recommended. You’re far better off in pumps — say Tretorn or Converse — or something in soft leather by Car Shoe or Oliver Sweeney.
As for shorts, the two things absolutely to avoid are three-quarter length ones (a bad idea even in the late Nineties; beyond redemption now) and sports shorts (vulgar, except for doing sport in).
Combat shorts with bulging pockets are also looking exceedingly dated. In fact, all types of baggy and slouchy legwear are out, shorts having gone the way of the rest of fashion, which is to say tailored and smart. Just above the knee is ideal, preferably made from an upmarket fabric — something traditional such as Bedford cord or a sturdy cotton.
It’s time we all abandoned those pseudo-Californian beach bum or crusty-goes-to-Goa looks that have been informing our summer wear for the last decade and made shorts look crisp, smart and pukka again. That way, we can remind ourselves how perfectly splendid an Englishman is capable of looking, even in the heat of the midday sun.
