Fashion for feet | Latecomer alert: White socks

Fashion shock on a boat trip in Berlin. I ask a pair of teenage twin sisters why they're wearing white socks? "Because it's cool," says one. Excuse me, what? "Because it looks good," says the other. And then they jump into the water without socks, and I stare, perplexed.

White socks are supposed to be cool? And look good? This is the first time I've heard that in decades! I considered the white socks ban a biblical commandment of stylists and modernists, issued for everyday use so as not to look too stupid. This commandment originated in the dark West Germany of the mid-1980s, when apocalyptical warnings were issued about acid rain (destroying the forests) and nuclear missiles (destroying everything else) – and about white socks.

It was easy to remember: No white socks, and you're okay. It was a double warning: against hippies and poppers alike. Some wore them with sandals (considered really bad), others with college shoes (almost worse). Both were considered repulsive: hippies had stopped their fashion journeys, and poppers were stuck in conservatism.

And then there were Steffi Graf and Boris Becker, the heroes of the new we-are-something-again tennis nationalism. This was particularly silly, and white tennis socks were therefore taboo. Shorts for men were also banned, as were headbands for all genders, like those worn by Björn Borg, John McEnroe, and Martina Navratilova, because they looked like they were glued on.

Headbands for the feet were roughly the same image as white socks – a fashion misunderstanding. Those who wore them anyway were acting comedically, in the 2000s usually as rebellious characters like in the TV series "New Kids" or "Little Britain," where bluntness was king.

But uncool becomes the new cool, these are the eternal laws of yin and yang in the fashion industry, or as Yves Saint Laurent put it: "What is elegance but forgetting what you are wearing?"

I've just read it: Billie Eilish is wearing white socks. I've asked around: The editorial staff at this newspaper already knows that they're leaving again – at least for a year, because the family announced it. I asked the twins on the boat: "And what about black socks?" - "Forget them!" they both said at once.