When dressing for business casual, do you wear socks that match your shoes or socks that match your slacks?
I mean, if I’m wearing grey socks and black shoes, do I wear grey socks or black socks?
If I’m wearing khaki pants and black shoes, do I wear lighter-colored socks, or black ones?
If I’m wearing light-colored khaki pants and dark brown shoes, do I wear dark brown socks, or lighter colored socks?
Socks should match your shoes unless you’re going for a Michael Jackson-type look.
Oops. I posted under my boyfriend’s account.
ANYWAY, I think matching socks to shoes has a more professional, put-together look. It also creates a neater, unbroken look between your pants and your shoes. Matching socks to pants would have a sloppy look if someone got a glimpse of ankle.:eek:
Even if you feel that you must occasionally wear brown shoes, never, ever, wear brown socks. ::barf smiley::
Generally, I think you should match similar-toned socks with your shoes. Beige or tan socks with brown shoes etc. But they should also blend in with the colour of your trousers. So black trousers with beige socks and brown shoes = nono.
My two cents.
There’s a dilemma here, because while women have, at last count,16,723 different shoe colors, we fellas have far fewer.
We don’t get far beyond black, brown, tan, etc. So what do I have navy blue socks for? When was the last time you saw a man wearing maroon shoes?
VernWinterbottom: Navy blue can go with your black shoes and dark trousers. But I’d be worried about them maroon socks though 
I have a pair of cestnut-brown cap toe oxfords that I wear with khaki-colored slacks. What color socks SHOULD I wear with them?
IME, in the UK, men should wear grey or black or blue-black socks, period. Women have much greater latitude.
And they all have to match the outfit, jewelry, and the purse. The dilemma is on the women, not the men. Its harder for women to match 16,723 colors instead of just 3 colors, not easier. That is why color blindness is so rare in females, because color corrdination is necessary for females to survive.
I thought that there was no such thing as color coordination - it is merely an invention of women so that they can use it to humiliate men.
Drifting quietly away from GQ here…
Trick question right?
The correct answer is…“Hope you’re wearing grey underwear”!
Did I hear a bell?
Your socks should match each other.
You have a choice of 2 colors:
Navy blue (almost black)
and Black
That is all.
Hmph. Bunch of hosiery deontologists.
Socks can ‘match’ either shoes or pants, or, they can be a coordinated color. Deciding which way to go depends on a couple of factors:
Of all the choices, which simply ‘looks’ better?
Are you dressing stylishly or conservatively?
In a business environment, even on casual days, one dresses conservatively (unless your business is essentially stylish, like clowning, e.g.). This means you choose the matching or coordinated color which makes the ankle fade into background, usually the darker color.
If you’re going out to a fun dinner, then wear the socks that match or coordinate and stick out a bit more for a flash of color and style. But don’t go novelty-sock crazy, that’s just… crazy.
Sock it to me.
Black socks work with almost anything you’d wer as business casual. And if all your socks are black, they all go with each other.
OK, here’s what I do, for what it’s worth:
-navy blue pants + brown shoes = navy blue socks
-navy blue pants + black shoes = black socks
-khaki pants + brown shoes = khaki socks
-I don’t wear black shoes with khaki pants
-same as khaki for the olive pants (i.e., brown shoes and olive socks only)
-charcoal gray pants + black shoes = either charcoal gray socks or black socks, whichever I find first
And there you go.
This is a common dilemma, and one on which opinions differ:
The traditional style is for the socks to match the trousers, creating an unbroken visual line down the leg, ending at the shoes – if you are wearing blue trousers and black shoes, then your socks should be blue. This would tend to emphasise the boundary between sock and shoe, drawing attention to the shoes. Which might be a good thing if you have particularly good shoes.
A popular modern (smart) style is for the socks to match the shoes, creating an unbroken visual line up from the shoes and under the trousers – if you are wearing blue trousers and black shoes, then your socks should be black. This seems like a fairly safe choice, since it has the same visual effect as wearing a pair of boots would. Probably a good idea if the contrast between trousers and shoes is very noticable.
Another point of view is to consider the sock as a bridging area between trouser and shoe, which should ideally blend the two into an harmonious whole – so if you’re wearing blue trousers and black shoes, your socks should be a blue darker than the trousers, creating a visual “bridge” between the two.
Having said all that, if you’re wearing khaki pants and black shoes, there’s probably no hope for you. Try pink, that’s a nice colour. Or orange.
:rolleyes:
Black socks, black shoes, black pants. Bright red shirt with company logo. 
OTOH, I saw one of our support people in the caf today wearing a neon green tie and neon green running shoes. Somehow I never noticed his socks…
It’s interesting that there is a point along the business formality chain where the coordination between socks-shoes-pants takes an abrupt crazy about-face. When a certain level of management is reached, it becomes completely acceptable, even encourged, to start wearing socks with little colored icons on them–sail boats, golf clubs, mickey mouse ears, company logo, etc.
I long for the day when I get promoted to the point where I can dazzle the boardroom with my Batz Maru socks.