There's a company called Dahlgren that made fantastic alpaca wool argyle socks. They only came in one black/grey/red pattern, but they went years without deteriorating significantly. I think they still make good socks, but they sold to a larger company and no longer do argyle, or any other patterns I really care for. I bought a couple of pairs of their basic sock in a "pine green" that's the color of soporific oblivion. I don't wear them much.
Smartwool set me up with a few pairs of their Diamond Jim argyles last year, and I thought I had a reasonable second-best. This year, no argyle at all in the catalog. One sort of argyle-adjacent pair. And they didn't really hold up all that well, though if I could replace them I would. The Dahlgrens probably set an unreasonable expectation for durability.
And now I'm pretty much turned loose on general Internet searches for wool argyle socks. And I fear most of them will be crap like the Warrior brand I got off Amazon. I mean, they're not terrible, just way too soft and a little formless. A little too tall. Too angora-sweater fuzzy. Something about them just feels so cheap that I haven't worn them enough to find out if they hold up at all. These are not my socks.
Any recommendations? The hive knows everything, but I'm not sure the overlap on argyle-specificity isn't a step too far.
My wife sure likes anything from the SmartWool brand. I know they do men's socks as well, less sure about argyle styles being offered.
Just bought DW a couple pairs of alpaca blend sleep socks from a place called PACAS. Don't know if they have argyle or not, but they seem decent quality for the price.
In reply to Everybody:
Thanks for the input, all; I think I'm going to have to figure out what I wear if I'm not wearing argyle. I'm not surprised my choices have fallen out of fashion. I'm a little surprised to have fallen so far out that nobody's catering. I mean, there are plenty of cotton argyle socks, but I'm not going back. Wool's way better, cool or warm, and in the summer I'm wearing shorts and cycling socks half the time. In January in the damp PNW, definitely wool...
I don't think they make any argyle socks but check out a brand called Grip6 out of Utah. They make some really solid wool socks.
Icebreaker socks for me . . . merino wool. I don't know if they do argyle, though, since I only buy black socks.
In reply to TheGloriousW :
Holy carp. Not what I was imagining for daily wear, but I clearly need a pair of those. Guess I just didn't find them poking around the DeFeet site...
EDIT: Dangit; not available for me and my size 11 feet. Looks like the 2023 purge of all things argyle has hit DeFeet as well and they're just clearing out old stock.
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