...add a bit of comfortable flair to your semi dress attire, whether it be for work or that important social event. not dull and boring, and not extreme, these are very attractive, classy socks.
This is my first experience with alpaca socks and I am very impressed. The feel of them is something in between wool and cashmere. They are a little softer than wool but not as soft as cashmere. The weight is slightly thicker than a typical dress sock, but I am still able to wear a pair of dress shoes with them. They have a lovely conservative style which looks great for work with a pair of slacks. The small-medium works great on my size 8 women's feet. (That is my shoe size.) They stay comfortably on my calves without either compressing or sliding down. I think these socks have everything I'm looking for---comfort, style, and fit.
I'm a professional outdoor instructor, so I know more than most how a good pair of wool socks is worth their weight in gold, maybe even twice that. And I've had many clients and colleagues asking me if I had an opinion or any experience with alpaca wool. Fortunately I do! These will be the fourth set of alpaca socks I have reviewed (the previous three were all from Hollow) and I have a fifth set coming in a couple of weeks that's also from Nootkas.These argyle socks are a outlier from the other socks that I have reviewed or will be reviewing because they're formal sucks versus the technical and everyday socks I usually wear.I have found these socks to be very soft and comfortable to wear. They breathe well. They provide a little bit of warmth when the temperature drops but shed heat when things start to get warmer. They're a great sock that will be able to handle the temperature shifts throughout the day and if you're prone to hot and sweaty feet these socks will treat you well and (if you're a fan of the pattern) looking good. They're not the most durable socks in the world but they're not meant to be hard use. I've been enjoying using them as casual socks since receiving them.These socks are excellent socks that is not in question. The important point of evaluation isn't performance or comfort, but value over Merino wool. The brands that sell alpaca wool would have you believe that wool is terrible and riddled with problems. That alpaca wool does everything better than Merino wool by orders of magnitude. That is simply not the case. This should go without saying but these brands are trying to sell you something. Many of the claimed disadvantages of Merino wool that you'll find in these articles are at best overstated, at worst actively disingenuous. In 2024, most of the claim issues with wool socks have long been solved or mitigated. With brands working in that space having decades to innovate and to develop deep institutional knowledge on the subject. In contrast, alpaca wool is the new kid on the block. It has a lot of buzz (largely because of aggressive marketing towards baby boomers and NOT to professional users like myself) and there are dozens of new companies that are forming up to try to sell you alpaca socks. It's a young field that lacks the maturity of the Merino wool sock industry. I have found that alpaca wool does have a slight performance advantage over bog standard Merino wool. But most alpaca offerings lack sophistication and are overall simplistic. There are very few technical sock options, and you don't have the deep library of blends and multi-layer fabrics that you'll find with Merino wool offerings. Alpaca may beat out simple and cheap Merino wool socks, but it can't really compete with the more of the advanced options available for any price point that you can find in wool. These more advanced wool options are usually better performing than alpaca and usually significantly better designed.But that mostly has to do with technical socks, which these argyle ones absolutely are not. If you were to compare these with identical socks just made in Merino wool, you would likely find that the alpaca is just a little bit softer just a little bit more breathable, would slightly better temperature and moisture management. But the difference between the two wools is so small for a sock like this is so slight that the better metric is price. If these socks are cheaper than similar looking Merino wool socks go with these alpaca ones. If this alpaca sock is more expensive than the Merino looking at, go with the Merino. The major exception has to do with if you have any sort of allergy to lanolin oil. Which so far has mostly been a theoretical problem in my experience but it's still worth keeping in mind. The other is ethical, there is a claim that alpaca wool is more sustainable and environmentally friendly. But I'm dubious about whether or not that will stay true in the long term.