A few weeks ago, some guy called me to talk about socks. His name was Emmanuel and he told me he had given up a perfectly good job in banking to set up a website selling what used to be known as "men's hosiery". That's right - from stocks to socks. But very expensive, refined and elegant socks, all hand made by artisans in Italy. Status socks, you might say. His site is called Mon tiroir à chaussettes.com.Emmanuel contacted me because he knew I'd written about luxury brands and he wanted to know how to capture the attention of the press. "Should I send the journalists some socks?" he asked. "No," I said, an idea forming in my mind. "Just some them ONE sock. With a note saying they have to call you to get the other one. There's nothing more annoying than a single sock - they won't be able to resist." Emmanuel liked the idea - and last week I received in the mail a box containing one lonely but rather lovely purple sock. It achieved minor stardom on Instagram. When I met Emmanuel to claim its partner, he told me that he was working on an English version of the site called My Sock Drawer (mysockdrawer.com). I'll certainly be one of his first customers. They say you can judge a man by his handshake, his watch and his shoes. But, thanks to Emmanuel, socks will soon be able to pull their weight too.
