Most of our socks are knitted in colour: the yarn is dyed first, and the pattern is decided on the machine. Our tie dye socks go the other way round. They are knitted plain, in a thick ecru cotton, and the colour arrives afterwards, by hand, one pair at a time. It is the slowest sock we make, and the only one where the pair you receive exists nowhere else.

Here is how it is done, from the first stitch to the last rinse.

It starts as a plain sock

Every pair begins at our family-owned factory near Braga, in the north of Portugal. The yarn is a slubbed cotton: a thread with a slightly uneven thickness that gives the finished sock its texture and its weight. It is knitted on a vintage machine into a thick ribbed crew sock, undyed, the colour of raw cotton.

That plainness is the point. A sock that will be hand-dyed needs a clean base and a fibre that takes colour well. Cotton does both. The slub adds a third thing: because the thread is thicker in places, the dye settles unevenly along it, and the swirl ends up with more depth than it would on a flat, regular yarn.

Tied first, then dyed

The name describes the method. Before any colour touches the sock, it is folded, twisted and bound by hand. Where the cotton is pulled tight, the dye cannot reach, or reaches only faintly. Where it is loose, the colour floods in. The way a pair is tied decides the pattern, and no two are tied exactly alike.

Then the dye. Our pairs are worked in small batches, a handful at a time, with one or two colours per pair. The bound socks go into the first bath and are left for the colour to take. For a two-colour pair, the second shade is added afterwards, either over the first or in the areas the ties left bare, so that the two meet and bleed into each other along the folds. This is where the character comes from: a pair in rust and mustard will have a different balance of rust to mustard than the next one, because the hand that tied it and the hand that dyed it did not do exactly the same thing twice.

Once the dye has set, the ties come off. This is the moment the pattern appears, and it is the part nobody tires of: the pair is unwound, and the swirl, the bleed and the pale lines where the cotton was bound show themselves for the first time. The socks are then rinsed until the water runs clear, washed, and dried, which is also why the colours you see on the page are the colours you will see on your feet. The excess has already been taken out.

Why no two pairs are the same

A machine-knitted stripe can be repeated ten thousand times to the millimetre. A hand-tied, hand-dyed sock cannot be repeated once. The folds fall differently, the dye takes differently, the second colour reaches further on one sock than on the other. We photograph one pair per colourway, and the pair that arrives will be a close relative of it, not a copy.

We think that is the best argument for owning a pair. It is also the honest one: slight variations are not flaws. They are the signature of something made by hand rather than by the thousand.

How we wear them

Thick, ribbed and a little loud, the tie dye sock sits best with clothes that are calm. Light denim and a plain boat shoe or loafer let the ankle do the talking. A navy and olive pair goes quietly with a brown shoe; an orange and black pair is a deliberate choice, and looks best worn like one, with a dark trouser and nothing else competing.

For women, the same rule holds: a straight jean and a flat shoe, or a simple dress with trainers, and the sock as the one detail that moves. The pink and violet and the indigo and coral pairs are the softest of the range; the black and green and the brown and blue the most grounded.

Caring for hand-dyed socks

The socks are rinsed and washed before they leave the atelier, so they are ready to wear. Even so, treat the first two or three washes as you would a new pair of raw denim: at 30°C, inside out, and with darks or on their own rather than with your white shirts. After that, wash them with similar colours as you would any cotton sock. No tumble dryer and no bleach; dry them flat or over a rail. Hand-dyed cotton softens with washing and the colour settles rather than fades.

The full tie dye range

Every pair is €29, in one size for women (EU 36 to 41) and one size for men (EU 40 to 46). The colourways change with the batches; this is what is in stock now.

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Women Tie Dye Socks, Pink / Violet€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Indigo / Coral€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Grey / Bright Green€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Black / Green€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Brown / Blue€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Rust / Yellow€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Rust / Lime€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Orange / Black€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Black / Strong Blue€29 Women Tie Dye Socks, Spring Green€29 Men Tie Dye Socks, Navy / Olive€29 Men Tie Dye Socks, Brown / Blue€29 Men Tie Dye Socks, Black / Green€29 Men Tie Dye Socks, Orange / Black€29 Men Tie Dye Socks, Rust / Mustard€29 Men Mustard Dyed Socks€29

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See all women's tie dye socks and men's tie dye socks.

Frequently asked questions

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