I feel like dress socks differentiate you in a different way - especially men in suits who just have the traditional business suit. The dress sock is the way to change it up in your mind and I like wearing my pants up higher so you see them.
Some men tend to cling to old intellectual excitements, just as some belles, when they are old ladies, still cling to the fashions and coiffures of their exciting youth.
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

