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September 28, 2022

The art of the running sock

by Ed Vickers

It’s really hard to make a good pair of running socks. Even harder to do it using recycled fabrics that tread lightly on our planet. But after 24 months of 'trail and error', experimenting with various yarns across polyesters, nylons and cotton blends, we’re delighted with where we landed.

Here are some of the things we’ve been obsessing about on your behalf.

Sustainability. Marrying performance with sustainability was always going to be the big challenge. The majority of conventional running socks use environmentally harmful virgin synthetic fibres (plastics like polyesters, polyamides etc) for good reason. Their wicking, durability and stretch performance is high, however, their greenhouse gas emissions are higher. Their ‘indestructible’ nature also allows them to sit on landfill for the next 200 years. By using recycled Nylon we benefit from the performance elements of these fibres whilst dramatically reducing the energy, water and emissions associated with manufacturing a virgin material. Our recycle scheme is designed to solve the landfill issue. When it comes to retiring your old socks, you can send them back to us be recycled and their materials repurposed.

Performance. Good running socks need to strike a balance between comfort, breathability, durability and compression. Each runner will prioritise these differently depending on their discipline (trail, road, track), footwear and season. Our launch range are designed to strike a balance across them all, covering those in need of something light and breezy to those out all day on the hills in the wind and rain.

Design. Runners have long suffered having to look like power ranges when wearing their running kit. Neon this and that. Our socks have been designed to be fuss-free and neutral to suite all shoe and apparel choices. Nothing too wacky.

Responsibility. The first step we took after having the idea for Sums was to find a partner factory leading the way with the right certifications to prove their commitment to manufacturing responsibly (compliance, worker rights, supply chain transparency & energy efficiency). We’re delighted to be working with an amazing family-run factory in Portugal (Porto) that are certified with Global Recycled Standards, GOTS, OEKO TEX Standard 100 & ISO 9001.

We could go on, as there’s more to running socks than you can imaging. If you have any feedback, thoughts or ideas that can feed into our next product, we’d love to hear from you. We’re just at the start so are keen to learn all we can in our voyage to make the best pair of running socks on (and for) the planet.

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