The socks look like emptied foil balloons and make a vague crackling sound when you turn on them for the first time. They are made in Italy and cost around $ 50 per pair – a price that, according to some, is worth the joy that the socks have inspired.
“I felt that I should have them,” said Cynthia Cohen, 75, who lives in Colorado and works in public health. “When I looked at the price, I was a bit shocked, but I tried to pretend it didn’t exist.”
Sometimes Mrs. Cohen wears the socks to cheer up an outfit, she said. Other times she puts on them to cheer herself: “I just wear them for myself to feel that I have fun.”
Since Maria La Rosa, the Milanese label behind the socks, she introduced it in 2020, it has sold around 25,000 couples according to a representative of the brand. More than half of those couples – around 14,000 – were sold in the last 12 months.
Offered in around 40 colors, the socks are now worn by department stores such as Galeries Lafayette in Paris. But the majority of the turnover in the past year was in independent boutiques such as Yucca, the store in Denver, where Mrs. Cohen bought them.
“In my mind they defy logic,” said Kimberly Keim, the owner of Yucca, who started selling the socks two years ago. Their appearance has also confused some customers: “They are just as thin as a piece of paper,” she added. “Many people pick them up and think they are only use.” (They are not.)
Mrs Keim did not prevent this from selling hundreds of couples, in shades such as Aqua Blue, Gold and Silver. Joanna Napies, 57, bought her second pair of socks, in a metallic navy blue color, in Yucca in December.
“It just picks you up,” she said about wearing the socks. Mrs. Napies, who lives and works in Digital Advertising Technology in Denver, added that they remind her of the foil buyers who include certain hard candies.
The socks, made from a finely woven silk and polyamide blend, get their shine from a reflective foil coating, making them look somewhat stiff. The design lasted three years to develop, said Lisa C. Ferrari, an owner of Maria La Rosa.
“We wanted something luxurious but unusual,” she said.
Fantative socks have been a basic product by Maria La Rosa since the mother of Mrs. Ferrari founded the brand in the 1990s. The other styles are, among other things, socks with Paillette paillets that look like confetti and with rows of glass bugel beads that float somewhat dangerous near the tendon of the Achilles.
But according to Mrs. Ferrari, nobody has completely caught like the thwarted versions, which the brand calls ribbed laminated socks. “It’s a strange look that makes people curious,” she said.
Katie Bowes, who started selling the socks in her store, the postal facility, in Portland, Maine, last fall, agreed that they look strange – until someone encourages them. As they explained when the socks are worn for the first time, their foil coating extends subtly. As it does, they become wearer and make a sound related to low radiostatic or bubbling a freshly cast Seltzer – another feature that distinguishes the socks.
Mrs Bowes said that she is holding a broken pair of socks behind the cash register of her store, so that customers understand that “this is a silk sock with a cool detail and not something weird and plastic.” She added that many people who bought the socks from her store did this after they had seen them in a gift guide published last November by Wirecutter, the Product Records Service of the New York Times.
Eliza Rauscher, 40, a broker in Portland, bought a fuchsia pair of the socks at the Post Supply earlier this month. She learned about them from friends, she said, and described the socks as ideal for showing properties where she can’t wear shoes inside.
“They are not like your gyms socks or other socks that you don’t intend to see,” said Mrs. Rauscher. “They are socks that you want to be noticed.”
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