The socks look like deflated foil balloons and make a faint crackling sound when you first put them on. They are made in Italy and cost about $50 a pair — a price that some say is worth it for the joy that the socks have inspired.
“I felt like I had to have them,” said Cynthia Cohen, 75, who lives in Colorado and works in public health. “When I looked at the price I was kind of shocked, but I tried to pretend it didn’t exist.”
Sometimes Ms. Cohen will wear the socks to liven up an outfit, she said. Other times, she puts them on to cheer herself up: “I just wear them for myself to feel like I’m having fun.”
Since Maria La Rosa, the Milanese label behind the socks, introduced them in 2020, it has sold about 25,000 pairs, according to a representative for the brand. More than half of those pairs — some 14,000 — were sold in the last 12 months.
Offered in some 40 colors, the socks are now carried by department stores like Galeries Lafayette in Paris. But the majority of sales over the past year have been at independent boutiques like Yucca, the store in Denver where Ms. 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 so thin like a piece of paper,” she added. “A lot of folks pick them up and think they are single use.” (They are not.)
That has not stopped Ms. Keim from selling hundreds of pairs, in shades like aqua blue, gold and silver. Joanna Napies, 57, bought her second pair of the socks, in a metallic navy blue color, at Yucca in December.
“It just picks you up,” she said of wearing the socks. Ms. Napies, who lives in Denver and works in digital advertising technology, added that they remind her of the foil wrappers that encase certain hard candies.
The socks, which are made of a finely woven silk and polyamide blend, get their sheen from a reflective foil coating that makes them appear somewhat stiff. The design took three years to develop, Lisa C. Ferrari, an owner of Maria La Rosa, said.
“We wanted something luxurious but unusual,” she said.
Fanciful socks have been a staple product of Maria La Rosa since Ms. Ferrari’s mother founded the brand in the 1990s. Its other styles include socks embellished with paillette sequins that resemble confetti and with rows of glass bugle beads that hover, somewhat dangerously, near the Achilles’ tendon.
But, according to Ms. Ferrari, none have caught on quite like the foiled 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 at her store, The Post Supply, in Portland, Maine, last fall, agreed that they look strange — until someone puts them on. As she explained, when the socks are first worn, their foil coating delicately stretches out. As it does, they become slinkier and make a sound akin to low radio static or the fizz of a freshly poured seltzer — another trait that sets the socks apart.
Ms. Bowes said she keeps a broken-in pair of the socks behind her store’s cash register 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 have bought the socks from her store did so after seeing them in a gift guide published last November by Wirecutter, the product recommendation service of The New York Times.
Eliza Rauscher, 40, a real estate agent 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’re not like your gym socks or other socks you don’t intend to see,” Ms. Rauscher said. “They’re socks you want to be noticed.”
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