Behind The Seams - the SOCKSHOP blog.

Heat Holders sneak peek

You might not be thinking about how to keep toasty and warm with this weather, or maybe you are (I can’t keep up with this crazy British spring!) But either way, I just had to share these images with you!

Hello lovely, neat sock drawer!

Extreme testing!

Whenever we need a new pair of socks or items from the site testing/reviewing it’s normally quite easy to find a volunteer – either a team member or customer – who can use them for every day wear.

A week in the life of my socks!

Monday’s sock is made of lace...

Eight reasons why we love...

1. Because after sunless winter days, the ghostly colour of our bare legs is likely to scare small children. 2. To hide the fact that we forgot to pick up razors on the last supermarket shop. 3. So we’re not caught out when that ‘sunny day’ disappears by lunch time. 4. Because who wouldn’t want to look like there are butterflies flying across their legs?

What our desks say about us

The work desk - it’s your home away from home, a place to gather thoughts, make plans and, well, get stuff done for work! But as I glanced around the SOCKSHOP office one afternoon - daydreaming (just for a minute, honest!) instead of getting on with my work – I wondered: What do our desks really say about us?

Autumn/winter sneak peek

OK, I know you don’t want to think about next winter, I’m not even sure we’re out of this one, but I had to share some of the gorgeous autumn/winter 2013 designs that I’ve stumbled upon.

Bringing the sunshine to SOCKSHOP HQ!

A few weeks ago I excitedly wrote a blog post about an upcoming beach photoshoot we had planned to showcase our spring/summer new arrivals. Well, we may have wanted to head to the shore to shoot some pretty pictures, but unfortunately the weather had other plans!

Preparing for a photoshoot

As much as we’d like to think that our beautiful socks and tights can sell themselves on their fine qualities alone, we do like to show them off in a pretty and glamorous photoshoot every now and then!

Spring/summer faves

Seriously, can winter just bore off already? Alright we get it – it’s cold, it’s wet, there are shorter days and longer nights. But we’re heading to the final straights of February and it’s just getting ridiculous now!

Doing our bit for Battersea

You are probably familiar with Battersea Dogs and Cats Home; they have a very long history of rehoming cats and dogs and are definitely a much-loved charity, not just in London but all over the country.

An evening with Oroblu

Last week we attended fashion brand Oroblu’s preview of its autumn/winter 13 collection at a rather swanky hotel in London. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Oroblu – it is an Italian-based label which produces tights and socks that are fashionable, stylish with a dash of quirkiness thrown in.

SOCKSHOP Spend to Give: Mind

You might remember that last November we launched a scheme called SOCKSHOP: Spend to Give, where we revealed that we would donate 20% of our proceeds to a nominated charity every last Friday of the month.

The evolution of a sock: Designed, made and ready to go!

Way back last year, last spring even, I wrote a few blog posts on the evolution of the whole sock-making process, following the progression of our ELLE Spring/Summer 2013 range.

Design a Sock competition - the samples!

Put your minds back to 2012; I know, it’s a stretch, but in that year we ran our fab competition which gave our lovely customers the chance to design a sock for our ‘Dare to Wear’ range.

SockShop recommends – tights for the party season

House decorated? Christmas presents bought? Turkey on order? Great! It means you can now focus on the important things, namely, what to wear to all those fabulous parties – especially the biggy, New Year’s Eve!

SOCKSHOP Spend to Give: Crisis

Here at SOCKSHOP we like to think we are very active in supporting good causes. As individuals, we all take an interest in helping charities in different ways, and this often spills over into our working life.

SOCKSHOP on the Underground

A couple of months ago I featured a few behind the scenes shots of a photo shoot we were doing in the Lowry Hotel in Manchester.

The winter wedding outfit conundrum

So last week I had a bit of a dilemma on my hands. I had been invited to a friend’s wedding, and had excitedly planned and prepared my outfit weeks before. There was a peplum dress, a pillbox hat and a trench coat – it was pretty cool.

Christmas socks – designed by students, sold by SOCKSHOP

Earlier this year we featured a number of posts about our competition, which involved pupils from a local school designing Christmas socks for us.

It's a tough job...

Last week a merry band of SOCKSHOP workers, including myself, headed off to the Lowry Hotel in Manchester to shoot a very exciting advertising campaign which we’ve got planned for this winter. We decided to use one of the hotel’s suites as the backdrop for the shoot, as it was modern and spacious, but also quite grey and muted – and perfectly reflected the atmosphere we wanted to create.

Our 'Design a Sock' winners!

Last month we ran what was, in our humble opinion, a pretty darn cool competition. We asked you lovely people to design a sock for our ‘Dare to Wear’ range, with the winning designs being made and sold on the SockShop site.

A pilgrim's progress...

It is quite common for SOCKSHOP to be contacted by different people and organisations requesting sponsorship or items to use in raffles. We especially like to hear from folks that are looking for socks to help them complete particularly arduous tasks which they are receiving sponsorship for.

When socks are more than socks part 2: random and various!

I had so much fun putting together the sock bun blog post, and it got me thinking, ‘how else can random socks be put to good use?’ So below is a selection of ideas on how to recycle socks.

Our 'Design a Sock' ideas (just for fun)

We’ve launched an amazing competition this week that I am very excited about. We are giving people the chance to design a new ‘Dare to Wear’ sock, and the winning designs will actually get made and go on sale on the SockShop website!!!

When socks are more than socks part 1: The hair accessory

The Three Peaks Challenge

The importance of socks can often be overlooked. In fact, we had a Facebook comment not that long ago saying that “socks are [just] bloody socks” (naturally we quickly replied detailing how we felt that this statement just wasn’t true!)

A cream tea with an Olympic legend!

The evolution of a sock - sample time!

It’s been a few weeks since I wrote about the design process for creating the new socks for our Autumn/Winter range.

Going with the flow – how to put together a summery photoshoot when it’s pouring with rain

A couple of weeks ago, when the sun was shining and the whole country felt optimistic about actually having a hot summer this year, we planned to show off our gorgeous spring/summer socks, tights and accessories in an outdoor picnic-themed photoshoot.