Are you familiar with Japanese fashion trends from the nineties? No? Well, get reacquainted with this one: Apparently lots of Japanese schoolgirls are buying extra-long knee socks and wearing them all scrunched up, sort of like a straw wrapper around their calves. Hey, there’s only so much you can do to spice up a school uniform, right? Cankles are better than boredom, after all.
According to news site Kotaku, wearing accordion-style socks was big about twenty years ago:
E.G. Smith invented the socks, which were originally hiking socks … Their appeal was that they make your legs look ‘cute’ … The loose socks became iconic. Anime and manga characters wore ‘em, and they popped up in movies. They also became code of sorts for teenage promiscuity and all that it entailed. And they got so loose that teens were holding them up with special sock glue.
Sock glue! Promiscuity! The last time we associated white tube socks with teen sex was … well, never mind. Anyway, apparently lots of trendy stores in Tokyo are stocking them, kids are tweeting about them, and models are wearing them. At least this is an improvement over those thigh sticker ads.
