BOLD STORY
ALWAYS TAKING STRIDES TOWARD BETTER
Our Journey
When boldSOCKS started ten years ago, our goal was simple: create a store with the boldest socks from the world’s boldest sock brands. Each year, we scoured the internet, trade shows and fashion shows hoping to add new brands and new styles so that you knew you got the best selection of dress socks and performance socks available on the internet.
That is, until the market was suddenly flooded with low-cost, low-quality designs and knock offs. Everywhere we looked, new brands were popping up with the same unimaginative story and dress sock designs that left much to be desired.
Fun socks hit the mainstream market and a race to the bottom began. Basic, stock icons were being stitched as repeating patterns into socks and our once innovative market now looked cluttered, uninspired and perhaps worst of all, cheap. There was little accountability to create anything but bargain brands and the ideas of fashionable, fun socks that were ethically manufactured or provided a social mission vanished.
The industry changed and it was time to innovate.
So, we started our own brand, Statement Sockwear, in 2014.
We wanted to provide sustainable funding to one of the world’s greatest crises of our time, dirty water. We committed to helping to provide 100 days of clean water for every purchase of Statement Sockwear. Why clean water? Unlike the one-to-one donation models that provide a donation of products for every product sold, clean water provides, on average, a sevenfold return on investment. Instead of creating dependencies on charity goods, we create opportunity by caring for basic needs so people can focus on starting businesses and growing economies, not shrinking them.
A better story also required a better sock. We committed to designing and engineering innovative socks. With a limited color palette and stitch count, we reinvented patterns and novelty socks by treating the sock like a canvas. Every design, every background and even every shadow and highlight has been meticulously placed and stitched to create distinctive, colorful socks built to last.
Finally, we committed to ethically manufacturing our socks. Instead of trying to cut corners and increase margins, we’ve honored fair pricing and true cost models to ensure everyone is taken care of from the time the cotton is picked to the time the socks are manufactured. We use a well-regulated, vertically integrated supply chain in Colombia to ensure the proper treatment of workers and the proper care of factories and fields.
Time for Change
As our passion and investment in Statement Sockwear grew, so did our passion to create a trustworthy and transparent experience on boldSOCKS.com that puts people before profits. We want to shine a light on brands, like Statement Sockwear, that willingly provide you information about their manufacturing facilities, ethical practices and company giveback programs.Our pledge to you is to be the best curators of bold: bold impact, bold ethics, and bold quality. When you choose bold, you choose better. You choose better brands with a responsibility to do good and spark environmental and social change. You choose better manufacturing facilities and ethical standards. And, you choose high-quality socks that will last you through your bravest and boldest steps.We’ve already started working with each of the brands, but ask for your patience over the next year as we properly evaluate and discern the products on our website.We understand that this may come at a cost, but we believe the benefits far outweigh the costs. We will no longer carry every design by every brand available on the market - just the good ones wanting to do good work.We never set out to get rich selling socks. We set out to be bold and to make an impact. Join us as we change our approach to consumerism and colorful socks.