Summer Socks

Last week, Alex Kabbaz and Joelle Kelly of CustomShirt1.com launched a major upgrade to their shopping site with a new checkout system that includes a member rewards program. Each purchase earns reward points equal to 10% of the purchase and once a member's account reaches 1,000 points they can be exchanged for merchandise.

Rewards are all the more reason to be pleased that the selection of cotton socks for summer has expanded dramatically this year. Readers may recall that I've complained about the dearth of striped socks available to those of us who have to do much of our shopping on the Web. Kabbaz and Kelly have eased my pain with new offerings from Pantherella and Marcoliani.

I don't generally care for many of Pantherella's color combinations, but their Sea Island stripes (the center photo) and solids are just fine and the quality is excellent. The Marcoliani offerings (top and bottom photos), on the other hand, are made from a humbler cotton and nylon combination but whoever designs the line has a great eye for color. In fact, the Bordeaux and the pine green colorings in Marcoliani's Merino wool dress hose are as close to perfect as I've seen in a sock and it doesn't get better than that.