Want to look stylish? Put on a pair of socks | Jess CartnerMorley

Yes, you read that right. Wearing socks is the new collar jump, the new roll-up of your shirt, the new mismatching of your earrings. It's the style detail that instantly sets you apart as one of the cool kids.

Previously, socks were the opposite of fashion. By the mere suggestion that one had dressed for practicality or comfort rather than aesthetics, they had the power to kill a look. The high-heeled strappy sandals had to be endured bare-legged - never mind that it felt like wearing cheesecloth. Trainer-liner socks, invisible inside your shoes, were invented so that no one knows you are wearing them.

But in 2022, wearing socks makes your look more fashionable, not less fashionable. On the catwalks of Balenciaga and Gucci, brightly colored sports socks are included much as avant-garde hats were on 1990s fashion shows, like a kind of visual exclamation mark .

Bright socks have always been a defining feature of sportswear, and especially the beautiful game. And now that Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish are star signings not just for their clubs, but for Burberry and Gucci respectively, the football aesthetic has a currency of style. Looking like a gamer now makes you look like a gamer.

So while moms in school mostly wear athletic socks with athletic wear geared toward the public for a post-drop-off coffee, their personal trainers began emphasizing their athletic seriousness by wearing chunky mid-calf athletic socks. And the It girls are following in their footsteps. The key accessory for Hailey Bieber or Bella Hadid running the paparazzi glove on their way to spinning class isn't a protein shake, but a pair of ribbed socks worn so casually over leggings. Mark my words: the practice understudy's days are numbered.

Like just about everything else in fashion lately, Renais socks are a love child of the two lifestyle changes of our time: the elevation of sport to a prestigious cultural level; and the needle shift to comfort that began with hygge before being given a royal warrant by lockdown. The days of suffering for fashion are already long gone. Being comfortable is an aspiration now. The rising hems are also at the origin of the revival. A mid-calf skirt worn with socks looks cluttered, with a little too much stuff at the ankle. Now that skirts are getting shorter and shorter, wearing them with socks - as seen on the Miu Miu catwalk, spiritual home of the mini-revival - looks like a modern way to do a mini.

But the fashionable sock should not be confused with the fancy sock. Homer socks are not included in Renais socks. Your sockdrobe (yes, that's a thing) should include ribbed athletic socks to wear with sneakers, either with leggings (tucked into socks) or with jeans (don't tucked into socks). It should include sheer, ribbed socks in neutral colors to wear with trousers and loafers, and bright socks to wear with heels. A strong color will help make it clear that you're wearing socks as an alpha style choice.

If, like me, you like the kind of chunky flat sandals that have the Look more modern than the leather gladiator style but find they tend to chafe and blister the top of the foot, a thick, textured cotton sock is a game changer. Style hacks don't get any easier - or easier to wear - than this.

Hair and Makeup: Sophie Higginson; model: Benn Hebbard at Body London