Societal Socks knits five styles: trainer, crew, long, sports and ski. Crew is the default, and it's what most schools, clubs and companies end up ordering. Long socks give you the most room to play with, so a full crest or a wordmark reads best there. Trainer socks disappear inside a shoe and suit a small ankle motif. Sports and ski are built around the activity. All five are fully customisable.
What sock heights can we actually knit?
Three height bands, and every style sits in one of them.
- Up to 8cm. Trainer and footer socks, which sit at or below the shoe line.
- 8cm to 14cm. The crew band, and the one most orders land in.
- 14cm and above. Long socks, mid-calf, knee-highs, and the taller sports and ski builds.
The band matters more than the style name, because the band decides how much room your design gets. A crest that looks lovely on a long sock has to be redrawn, simplified or shoved down to the ankle on a trainer sock. So if you already know the artwork you want knitted in, tell us that first. It often picks the height for you.
Construction is a separate decision from height. We knit a classic cotton sock, a sports sock with a reinforced extended cuff, a trekking construction with a terry sole, and a footer. You can have a tall classic sock or a short sports one. The two choices don't lock each other.
What is a trainer sock, and who is it for?
A trainer sock, sometimes called a footer or a no-show, finishes at or just under the top of the shoe. Worn with trainers you barely see it, which is exactly the point for people who don't want a sock showing at all.
That invisibility is also the catch. If you're ordering branded socks so that somebody sees them, a trainer sock is quietly working against you. You've got room for a small ankle motif, a single initial, or a logo on the outside of the foot. Not much else. A five-colour crest with lettering round it won't survive being shrunk that far.
Trainer socks earn their place as a second item alongside a taller sock. Or for a gym, a studio or a racket sport, where that's what people wear. They're also right for a summer run somewhere hot.
What is a crew sock, and why is it the default?
A crew sock sits a few inches above the ankle, in the 8cm to 14cm band. It's the sock most adults in the UK put on most mornings, and it's the safe choice when you're buying for a mixed group who'll wear them for different things.
The design surface is good. There's a clear panel on the outside of the calf for a crest, room for stripe bands round the leg, a cuff you can colour separately, and a heel and toe you can pick out. Most of the work we do for schools, clubs, companies and events is on a crew sock, and it's the height we suggest when a buyer has no strong view.
If you want one style to cover a whole membership or a whole year group, order the crew. You won't regret it.
When should you choose a long sock?
A long sock runs up the calf and, at the top of the band, to just under the knee.
Order one when the sock has a job to do. Rugby, football and hockey socks have to clear a shin pad or meet a playing kit, and a crew sock simply won't. Rowing is the other obvious one, where a tall sock in club colours is part of how a squad turns out. It's why we knit boat club socks, and you can see how those come out on our boat club socks page.
The other reason to go long is design, because a long sock gives you far more surface than anything else we make. On a long sock you can run a crest at full size on the calf, put a wordmark or a motto underneath, band the leg with stripes in two or three colours, and still have the cuff free for something else. On a trainer sock you're choosing between one of those and none of them.
So if your crest is detailed, if your name is long, or if you want the thing legible from the other side of a pitch, go long.
What makes a sports sock different?
A sports sock is a construction rather than a height. Ours is knitted at 53% polypropylene, 33% polyamide and 14% elastane, with a reinforced extended cuff so it holds its position instead of creeping down inside a shoe.
That's a synthetic blend rather than a cotton one. Polypropylene doesn't absorb water. It moves it. A cotton sock soaks up sweat and then holds it against the foot for the rest of the afternoon, and that's how you end up with a hot wet sock and a blister. A polypropylene one pushes the moisture out through the fabric instead, and lets the air come the other way, so the foot stays dry while it's still working. The polyamide is there for abrasion resistance, because a sock inside a shoe is basically being sanded all day. The elastane holds the shape.
It's cushioned, too, with padding where the foot actually lands. That's the bit people notice without being able to name it. It's the difference between a sock somebody puts on for a match and a sock that stays in the drawer.
We make the sports socks for Shiplake College on exactly this construction.
If you want something further up the technical scale again, we can knit our trekking build instead. That's a polypropylene-led yarn with Coolmax, Thermolite or merino, and a terry sole for cushioning. Our production holds Coolmax certification.
What it isn't is a compression sock, or a medical or CE-marked product. That's a different trade. This is a performance sports sock, and it's a good one.
What about a ski sock?
A ski sock is our tallest and warmest option. It has to clear the cuff of a ski boot, so it sits right at the top of the 14cm-and-above band, and we confirm the finished height at design stage.
It's a thicker, warmer knit with cushioning where the boot presses. For a school trip, a university snowsports club or a chalet operator, a ski sock in your own colours is proper kit rather than a souvenir, and people come back from the week still wearing them. Plenty of ski buyers order a crew sock alongside, for chalet and evening wear, which lets one design run across two heights.
Which style gives you the most room for a crest or a wordmark?
- Trainer / footer. Where it sits: At or below the shoe line, up to 8cm. Typical use: Gym, studio, racket sports, summer wear. Design surface: Smallest. One ankle motif or a single mark on the outside of the foot.
- Crew. Where it sits: 8cm to 14cm, a few inches above the ankle. Typical use: Everyday wear, schools, alumni, companies, events. Design surface: Good. Calf panel for a crest, stripe bands, separate cuff, contrast heel and toe.
- Long / knee-high. Where it sits: 14cm and above, calf to just under the knee. Typical use: Rugby, football, hockey, rowing, formal club kit. Design surface: Largest. Full-size crest, wordmark or motto, multiple stripe bands, free cuff.
- Sports. Where it sits: Any band, usually crew or long. Typical use: Training and match kit, club sport, running. Design surface: Same as its height band, with a deeper cuff you can colour separately.
- Ski. Where it sits: Top of the 14cm-and-above band. Typical use: Ski trips, snowsports clubs, chalet staff. Design surface: Large, with the top band sitting above a boot cuff where it stays visible.
What can be customised on any of these?
All of it. This is the part buyers most often underestimate. Whichever of the five you pick, these are all yours to decide:
- Six colours in one design in total, and the base colour is one of the six.
- Stripes: how many bands, how wide, what order, and where they sit on the leg.
- A crest or logo knitted into the calf, the ankle, the foot or the sole.
- A wordmark, a motto, a set of initials or a year, knitted rather than printed.
- The cuff, as a matching colour or a contrast.
- The heel and the toe, picked out in a second colour.
- A custom label with your own name or initialism on it.
One design rule is worth knowing before you brief us. Where the cuff matches the body of the sock, stripes carry straight through the cuff and the whole leg reads as one block. Where the cuff contrasts, the stripes start below it and the cuff becomes a band in its own right. Both look good. They just look like different socks, so decide which one you're making.
And all of it is knitted into the fabric, not printed on top of it, which is why it survives the wash. How that actually happens is set out in our guide to how a custom sock is made, step by step.
Which style should you pick?
If you're buying for a whole group and you want one answer, order a crew sock. It's the one people actually wear, it holds a crest well, and nobody opens it and wonders what it's for.
Go long if the sock is match kit, if it's going over a shin pad, if it's for a boat club, or if your crest needs the room. Go sports if the thing will be trained in. Go ski if it's going inside a boot. Add a trainer sock as a second line, never as the only one.
Two practical things apply whichever you choose. Every run is one design in one size, and that one size is our only size: one adult sock covering UK foot sizes 5 to 13, roughly 95% of adult feet in the UK. You never collect a shoe size from anybody, ever.
The other is the minimum, 100 pairs per design, which for a leaving year, a club membership or a squad is usually about right. Schools find that 100 pairs maps neatly onto one year group, which is why custom socks for schools works as a repeat annual order. Running clubs hit the same arithmetic from the other direction, and we've set that out in custom socks for running clubs.
Everything is made in Europe, and once your invoice is paid it's 7-8 weeks to delivery.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a crew sock and a long sock?
A crew sock sits a few inches above the ankle, in the 8cm to 14cm band. A long sock runs up the calf and, at the top of the range, to just below the knee. The real difference is design surface. A long sock takes a full-size crest with a wordmark under it, where a crew sock takes one or the other comfortably.
Which sock style is best for a school crest?
A crew or a long sock. Both give you a clear calf panel where a crest can be knitted at a size that reads from across a room. A trainer sock will only take a simplified ankle motif, so if the crest is the whole point of the order, don't order trainers.
Can we mix sock styles in one order?
Each run is a single design in a single size, minimum 100 pairs. So a crew sock and a ski sock are two runs of 100, not one run of 200 split between them. Plenty of customers do exactly that and order both.
Are custom socks one size?
Ours are. We knit one adult size and it fits UK foot sizes 5 to 13, which covers roughly 95% of adult feet in the UK. That's the point of buying socks rather than clothing. There's nothing to collect, nothing to guess at and no size to get wrong.
Can you put a logo on the sole of a sock?
Yes. The sole, the foot, the ankle and the calf can all carry a design, and text on the sole is a popular touch on event and race socks. It's knitted into the fabric like everything else.
How long does a custom sock order take?
7-8 weeks from payment of your invoice to delivery. You sign off the design, we invoice you, and production starts once that invoice is paid. Mock-ups usually come back to you within a day of sending your colours and artwork.
Send us your colours
Send your logo, your colours and a rough idea of numbers to enquiries@societalsocks.com, and we'll come back with a mock-up, usually within a day.