The Last Stand of the Sock Garter

There is something deeply comforting about binge watching Howards' Way on the U channel.

For weeks we have been marinating in shoulder pads, marina politics and the sort of restrained yacht club adultery that now looks almost courteous. Half the cast, I discover, were married to each other in real life, which explains the chemistry and also the slightly awkward eye contact during some of the more charged scenes. Method acting, Solent edition.

Then last night I found myself distracted not by a plot twist, nor by a collapsing boatyard empire, but by hosiery.

There sat Sir John Stevens, banker, establishment pillar, professional old buffer, at a polo match. The camera lingered. Not on scandal. Not on intrigue. On socks. Perfect socks. Regimentally upright. No slouch. No sag. No creeping descent towards the ankle like a wounded flag at half mast.

Which can only mean one thing.

Gentlemen’s sock garters.

For those under sixty, these were elastic contraptions worn below the knee to prevent one’s hosiery sliding south during the day. They were part of the invisible architecture of male dignity. My father wore them. Quietly. Efficiently. No announcement. Just socks that stayed where they were told.

Today, of course, we live in an age of moral and textile collapse. Socks puddle around trainers. Trousers hover uncertainly. Elastic waistbands have declared independence. The nation cannot even keep its knitwear vertical.

And yet there, on screen, in that gently absurd 1980s yachting universe, a banker sits at polo with socks so taut you could set your watch by them. It was like spotting a semaphore signal from a lost civilisation.

You do not buy sock garters in Tesco. You find them in traditional gentlemen’s outfitters, the sort that smell faintly of mothballs and Empire, where a man called Clive measures your inside leg with an expression suggesting he once fitted breeches for a colonel.

What I love is that no one ever discussed them. There was no lifestyle segment. No influencer unboxing his elastic retainers. They simply did their job. Discreetly. Like the best civil servants. Or a well tuned carburettor.

Perhaps that is why they appeal now. In a world of constant performative outrage and collapsing standards, there is something rather reassuring about hosiery discipline. Socks that know their place. Elastic that respects hierarchy.

I did briefly consider sourcing a pair, purely for anthropological reasons. Then I remembered I now spend most of my time in what I generously describe as workshop attire, which would render sock garters an exercise in optimism.

Still, I salute you, Sir John Stevens. Banker. Buffer. Guardian of vertical knitwear. While empires fall and plotlines wobble, your socks remain steadfast.

And really, if that is not a metaphor for lost British resolve, I do not know what is.