Happy Socks & Rolf Ekroth Sock It to CPHFW
Way up north, past the logomaniacal textiles of fashion’s four capitals, the Fifth Fashion Week kicked off with the usual flock of fashion kids (née crows) decked out in their Scandi-Sunday best. The first stop on their itinerary? None other than Rolf Ekroth, the buzzy Finnish designer with a knack for defying gender norms with spiffy streetwear. From the pebble-dotted lot, attendees spilled into Poolen, the Copenhagen-based concert venue, moving in their usual black mass to take their seats. I glanced down to peep the shoes (a helpless habit of this writer) to find not everything was as dark as it seemed—at least, from the ankle down. Butter, roses, argyle, gingham, stripes—just about every iteration of sock you can imagine then sprang up with a vibrance so potent it cut through the grey fog lingering on the Copenhagen skyline.
If the socks could talk, they would have decreed that Happy Socks—the Swedish pioneer of freakishly fly socks—hacked Copenhagen Fashion Week with a sock-knocking showcase of their “This Really Socks” FW24 collection, alongside Rolf Ekroth’s SS25 assemblage. On second thought, one pair did talk—well, more in text than in words, nonetheless, making that message loud and clear: “BIG SOCK ENERGY” appeared on a lime green pair as one model posed for a photo, pre-show.
“‘Big Sock Energy’ is our take on making a statement from the ground up, showing you've got flair, aura—whatever the buzzword of the moment might be. But you know who has it and who doesn't,” Aida Vrazalica, Happy Socks’ Global Head of Communications and PR, noted. “People with big sock energy are the playful pioneers, the go-getters, the ones not putting a second thought into what someone might think of them, their socks or their look, because they are that comfortable in who they are—socks and up.”
Indeed, the energy screamed “big sock” as the lights dimmed and the show kicked off with models strutting down the runway, high on swagger, low on modesty. Romantic garments flirted with street-cred worthy hosiery to the score of Finnish folk music, evoking a marriage of contemporary cool and quaint charm.
Ekroth’s collection featured a vast array of collaborations, including Finnish jewelry brand Kalevala, Puma, Nordic knitwear design house Novita, and creative directors Matilda Diletta, Tino Nyman, and Richard Ntege—eclectic doesn’t even begin to cut it. The result: A love letter to the Finnish custom of Lavatanssit, a dance-centric pastime, in which Rolf Ekroth offered up a design language coded with ultra-relaxed silhouettes and customary elements: sweaters stretching well past the hand, bomber jackets with ballooning sleeves, ankle-grazing gowns, heavy on crochet, light on fuss. Clothes to see and be seen in—and move in!
Backstage, Highsnobiety caught up with Ekroth, leading up to the show, for an exclusive chat on his freshest threads. What started out as a vision to bring a, as he put it, “sort of fucked up version” of The Sound of Music from the screen to the runway, the show’s initial concept of exploring the “weird” things in Finland that bring him joy led Ekroth to Lavatanssit. Lavatanssit quickly excavated from the surface to the collection’s core, which he later dubbed after the dance. “I guess [it’s] one of the most Finnish things we do,” he candidly reflects. Per the Finnish designer, his compatriots “show no emotion at all and dance stone-faced and seem to have no fun—at all.” And yet, not all is as it seems, as locals flock to the pavilions every weekend to dance for hours on end.
But sometimes the fun can run a little too strong, like when locals call for shenanigans of the sauced variety, a game of Hukkumisbingo perhaps, which entails a midnight dip in the lake. Hence, the life vests that emerged on the runway. The erstwhile swimming safety precaution turned accessory du jour emerged in babushka-esque florals akin to patterns you might see on your grandma’s table. Fashion that saves and that slays; and so, the übersmart technical wear synonymous with Ekroth’s name just got a little smarter.
Lakeside perils aside, Finland and its cultural nuances are themes that have occupied Ekroth’s mind for quite some time now. “Fins are quite weird. We’re in between Sweden, which we look [to] as a happy, big brother, and then the weirder part: Russia,” he said. And amid that dance between life and death, softness and stoicism, so cuts in the happy, big brother, Happy Socks, to inflect some of the collection with a dash of that Swedish cheer. Baseball caps, courtesy of the Swedish brand, embroidered with “big sock energy,” some in English, others ineffably drippy in Finnish, emerged with a bright zing.
Beneath Ekroth’s hemlines, kitsch played footsie with elevated, high fashion socks. Smart and irrefutably chic, Happy Socks soaked up the limelight with sheer textiles, sustainable styles, and inside-out silhouettes, a few among the collection’s hottest offerings. And while it all sounds like a far stretch into uncharted territory for the punchy purveyor of socks, considering it first cut its teeth on novelty products, it all boils down to the essence of what it set out to do from the onset. Bringing socks out from the peripheral and into focus, the Swedish brand sought to revolutionize hosiery with a collaborative spirit and, of course, headline-snatching socks—whether they be the foundation or the finishing touch to any outfit.
“Happy Socks was founded out of the will and desire to put a smile on people’s faces,” Aida Vrazalica shared ahead of the runway show. “When sitting on the subway, entering the bank, standing in the line to the docs, or any other random everyday moment, when seeing a person wearing a sock with a sausage emoji, braces, or dancing pickles, it’s pretty hard not to smile.” Ekroth echoes that sentiment. “I wanted to have a fun and light approach, not too serious because there are enough people who take themselves too seriously,” he noted.
He’s not wrong. In a world confronted with the pressure to suffuse oneself in stealth austerity, perhaps we could all take a few notes from their playbook. Naturally, that’s easier said than done. And yet, lighthearted fun might be closer than we think, say, below the knee and right above the ankle. Just slip on a pair of Happy Socks, and maybe you’ll notice you’ve had “big sock energy” all along but have yet to realize it—until now.
