SOCKS / RED OCHRE

COTTON SOCKS / RED OCHRE

Tender’s rib cotton socks are knitted and hand linked in England from raw unbleached cotton, with nylon for durability, then dyed or left in their ‘unborn’ natural state, in which case they will shrink to fit with the first wash.
Traditional hosiery (like these socks) is knitted as a long continuous tube of many socks, which are then cut apart into individual socks. These are then linked, which means that the open sock has the two sides knitted together, leaving a flat, seamless, join at the toe. Linking requires the operator to loop every corresponding stitch of the top and bottom of the sock, by hand, onto a knitting machine.
Tender’s socks are made with a loop-back, or terry, double knit sole. This makes them especially comfortable, and appropriate to wear with lighter shoes or even heavy boots.

Please note that the colour in natural dyed socks may transfer for the first few wears- we recommend washing cool, with similar colours, and not wearing with light coloured shoes until the socks have been washed a few times.

RED OCHRE

Red ochre is a naturally occurring earth pigment which gains its colour from hydrated iron oxide (rust). Other impurities give it tones ranging from yellows to purples. Ochre has a rich artistic history which goes back into prehistory: Blombos Cave outside Cape Town in South Africa has designs drawn on its walls in red ochre which date back around 75000 years.The cave paintings at Lascaux, France, are largely executed in ochre.

More recently, in the 18th Century, English fishing boats had their sails ‘barked’ with a mixture of tar, oak bark liquor, fat, and ochre, in order to protect the fabric from sea water.This had the side effect of staining them a deep red- the same colour as these garments.