For the most part, they are hidden away,
but they are an essential part of our wardrobe.
I'm talking, of course, about socks.
On average, we own 17 pairs each.
That's over 1.1 billion pairs stuffed into sock drawers
all across the UK.
Whether you like them simple, striped or just plain silly,
us Brits can't get enough of socks.
Spending over £700 million a year on them.
And what better place to find out how they're made
than one of the UK's oldest sock factories?
I'm Gregg Wallace, and tonight I'm meeting the close-knit team
who operate the weird...
You are torturing socks.
..and wonderful machines...
Crikey! Yeah.
Hot legs, right? Yeah.
..that produce 1.5 million socks every year.
I'm Cherry Healey,
and I'll be finding out if science...
No-one's smelt me like you've smelt me.
..can help us defeat smelly feet.
My socks are a biohazard.
And historian Ruth Goodman...
Gentlemen, I understand you're in need of some new socks.
Attention!
..will be saluting the stitch that saved lives
in World War I.
If you march about for ages and get nice sore feet,
we'll get some sort of indication
of whether the Kitchener stitch really works.
In just 24 hours, this factory will make over 6,500 socks -
and I'm going to reveal just how they do it.
Welcome to Inside The Factory.
This isn't the usual sort of place I find a factory,
but here, tucked away amongst residential streets in Leicester,
is the Pantherella sock factory.
They've been making socks on this street since 1937.
This old factory is unlike any I've visited before.
It's packed with amazing machines...
..that turn out three quarters of a million pairs of socks a year...
..for men and women.
And working alongside them is a highly skilled team.
Each sock still passes through more than 15 pairs of hands
on its journey from cotton thread to cosy toes.
And tonight, I'm getting hands-on, too,
as I discover how they make one of their best selling socks -
the Kilburn.
Along these narrow Leicester streets, a lorry packed with yarn
weaves its way to the factory.
I'm meeting production manager Simon Ellson...
Simon. Hello, how are you?
..just as their latest shipment has been dropped off
at a rather unusual intake bay.
Simon, do you honestly get your deliveries dumped on the pavement?
We do. Why?
Because this is a residential area
and we have to get the trucks through here
and unload them as quick as possible
so we don't block any of the residents in.
Why do you don't move somewhere more convenient?
Cos this is not convenient.
Most of the people who actually work here
actually live around these surrounding areas.
So, they will actually go home at lunch time for a cuppa -
and if we did decide to move,
it's like we're going to lose the whole skill set of the factory.
So, this is thread. What have you got, yarn? Yarn.
Yarn - and where's it from?
It's Egyptian.
Cotton yarn is made from the fibres surrounding
the seeds of the cotton plant.
Most of the cotton used in the factory is hand-picked
more than 2,000 miles away in Egypt,
one of the biggest cotton-producing regions in the world.
From there, the raw cotton is shipped to Italy,
where it's cleaned, spun into thread and dyed.
Then it's packed into boxes and transported here,
to this tiny street in Leicester.
Do you know how much yarn's on here, Simon? 800 kilos.
And how many pairs of socks would that make?
This delivery will make approximately 20,000 pairs of socks.
20,000 pairs? 40,000 individuals?
Yes. Righto.
Well, I'd like to see how it's done.
Steady, steady! All the way from Egypt, this stuff.
STRAINING, LAUGHING
All right, go back out again.
Crying out loud.
Can I have a go? Be my guest.
I used to do pallets of fruit and veg in the market.
Wahey!
Still got it.
There you go.
As our shipment of yarn is unloaded,
our sock production begins.
Each large spindle, known as a cone,
contains enough cotton to knit 25 pairs of socks -
but this stuff starts life as a plant.
So, how is it turned into this fine thread?
Cherry's been finding out.
Before Manchester had football, its currency was cotton.
The success of the city was built on spinning and sewing
during the Industrial Revolution.
Tower Mill is one of 900 that produced cotton here
during that time - but it's the only one still spinning cotton today.
Showing me how it's kept up with the latest technology...
Hi, Andy, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
..is Andy Ogden from English Fine Cottons.
It all starts with these -
250 kilo bales.
Gregg's sock cotton is from Egypt, but this factory's supply
comes from California and Australia,
where it thrives in warm subtropical climates.
Can I cut the bands? Please do.
Andy, thank you so much.
SNAP Oh!
You knew that was going to happen. I did. You did, OK.
Today, we're making yarn with Australian cotton.
Using state-of-the-art machinery,
this mill can produce 3,000 kilos of cotton yarn a day.
First, raw cotton from the different bales has to be mixed together
using a machine with the best name ever.
So, the Blendomat's ready. Are we ready to start the process?
I can't wait to turn on the Blendomat!
Right. Green button.
There she goes!
Since cotton is a natural product, no two bales are exactly the same.
The Blendomat's now going to take a piece
of every single one of the bales,
blending all the cotton together
to get a uniform product.
This ensures the whole batch will have the same strength and colour
when it's spun into thread.
What it's actually doing
is it's rolling across the top of the bales,
sucking up the top five millimetres of fibre.
So, the Blendomat is giving it a buzz cut?
Basically. That's exactly what it's doing.
After the five millimetre lengths of fibre have been plucked,
they float upstairs on a bed of air to six blending chambers.
It's like a giant tumble dryer.
It almost looks like a giant popcorn machine.
It's a bit like Knight Rider, as well,
with that light across the top.
MUSIC: Knight Rider Theme And it's just as fast.
My fluffed up cotton fibres whizz through a process called carding
to form a soft untwisted rope known as a sliver.
Someone's had a makeover. Look at that!
It's so clean and soft.
I'm just going to get progressively sleepier
as the day goes on.
The multiple slivers are then compressed
to form what looks like a giant super soft toilet roll.
Here it comes, whoo!
What do we call this? That's a lap.
Just one lap? You never do two or three laps?
We actually have to do eight laps for the next machine,
which is the comber. I'm exhausted.
My lap is in need of a serious comb-over.
What you will see is, the machine will start to comb the fibre,
and you'll see it,
but it'll be combing at around about 600 combs a minute.
I wish I could brush my daughter's hair that quickly.
We're making it as soft and luscious as it can be.
It's all about softness, isn't it?
Absolutely.
My cotton has been cleaned, blended and combed
an incredible 360,000 times.
Now it's ready to be spun on this mesmerising
ring-spinning machine.
It's 40m long. 1,200 spindles
of cotton spinning, all at the same time.
It's quite a sight to behold.
And it's a lot bigger here than it is here.
The rollers at the bottom
are travelling 80 times faster than the top.
And that's what spinning is.
You're drawing the cotton and forming it into a yarn.
It's so gorgeous.
Next, the tightly spun yarn is wound onto a six-inch blue tube
called a cop, ready for one final spin.
This is, in fact, the finished article - you just need to gather it
into one big roll. Absolutely.
It's winding at 1,000m a minute.
Is it happening so fast it's essentially invisible?
Absolutely.
The mill's modern machinery produces a staggering 4,200 miles
of yarn every hour.
That's 50 times more than it made at the peak of its Victorian heyday.
It is amazing to think that it started out in that bale downstairs,
and now it's this pristine yarn.
We've cleaned it, we've combed it, we've nurtured it,
and now that's a consistent yarn that will last in a garment
for years to come. Beautiful.
It's so exciting to see this company breathing new life
into a British industry that was the envy of the world.
So, next time you put on your toasty socks or your comfy jumper,
think about how much work it takes to turn this...into this.
Back in Leicester,
I've taken delivery of 800 kilos of Egyptian cotton -
enough to make 20,000 pairs of socks.
The factory is staffed by a team of 100 -
entire families from the local community
have worked here for generations.
But before I can get onto the factory floor
to start knitting socks, it's a visor, not a hair net for me,
and I'm off to quality control
to get my yarn tested by department boss Ian Green.
Oh, Ian? What are you doing here?
We're going to check the colour
to make sure that that colour of delivery that we've received
is exactly the same as the last delivery,
the delivery before, all the way back to when we started
taking that colour of yarn.
The factory uses 2,000 yarns on the production line.
Ian's got samples going back years -
but there's no modern computer storage here,
just old-school filing cabinets.
I've got to ask you, how many shades of grey?
Please tell me there's 50. More.
To colour test my yarn, we need a sample of thread
which is measured out by this fantastic-looking contraption.
It's called a roving machine.
It's like something out of Wallace and Gromit!
So if I talk about this, am I a roving reporter?
You could well be.
A roving is the technical term for a thicker bundle of yarn,
which is much easier to test...
It's like an assault course for cotton, right?
..than a single thread.
That'll give us a 60m roving of yarn.
GREGG LAUGHS I don't know why this is such fun,
it just is.
It's not unlike a pasta-making machine.
There? Yeah. And now, once I've got me sample,
what do I do with it then?
We're then going to go and look under the light cabinet
and check it for shade.
Ian's light cabinet contains three types of light bulbs - daylight,
shop lighting and old-fashioned tungsten.
On the daylight, all of those look - fairly similar?
The one on the bottom looks slightly greyer than the other browns.
But if we go under a store's light...
Oh, it's green!
Because the dyes that have been used
react differently to that light than they do with the others.
Under different light sources, we see colours differently.
Is there a name for that?
It's called metamerism,
and it's one of the things that we have to avoid.
So, is my navy yarn an exact match for Ian's 11-year-old sample?
OK, fingers crossed.
And under tungsten...
Yeah, we're fine.
I'll agree. Get in!
Now my yarn's passed Ian's light test with flying colours,
all I need is the rest of the cotton
to knit my stripy socks.
So, I'm heading for the yarn store.
If I've got to find the other seven colours amongst this lot,
I'm going to need a bit of help.
So, where is my sock guru, Simon?
Simon, hello again. Hello, how are you?
This place is incredible.
We hold 30 tonnes here at the moment.
Do you know how long that would be if we tied them all together?
Moon and back, four times over. Would it really?
If Neil Armstrong would have known this existed,
he might have done things differently.
Yep. We could have yanked him up and pulled him back again.
In different colours. Definitely.
And without his feet being cold.
VOICEOVER: You can't win 'em all.
Moving on...
I've got to find seven colours in 2,000 bins.
Yep. Can I take a flask of tea with me?
All right, first one is blackberry.
Right, I'm going in.
679. Well, hang on a minute...
# I'm walking, yes, indeed And I'm talking. #
Oh. Er...
# Now you come back to me... #
Blackberry.
Where's 319?
I need another hundred yards of this. Where is 300?
Got it, got it!
1,376 - hazy blue.
There are 12 types of yarn in here...
Where's 2,084?
..from luxury cashmere to recycled cotton.
They're stored on a kilometre of coded racking.
I hate it when we run out of numbers at the end.
That's shelves to you and me.
Two navy, 319. Oh!
There's enough yarn in this storeroom
to knit two million socks.
2,500, 2,600...
One pair for every person in Leicester.
Oh! Yes! Last one. Done it!
Now, I'm more of a black sock man myself, but...
Socks today come in all colours
to reflect our sense of style, or lack of it -
but there was a time when they didn't register
on the fashion radar at all.
Ruth investigates the era when all that changed.
For most of the 20th century,
socks were considered a dull, drab and functional piece of underwear.
MUSIC: Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees
Even into the late 1970s, socks were squirrelled away
beneath maxi dresses and long flares -
but in the next decade,
they were to emerge blinking into the limelight.
The 1980s was the decade when socks suddenly took centre stage.
MUSIC: Venus by Shocking Blue
To find out why, I'm meeting fashion designer and historian...
Hiya. Hello! How are you doing?
..Teleica Kirkland.
So, how did socks become such a fashion item in the 1980s?
Socks were speaking really about what was happening at the time.
Accessories was a big thing in the '80s -
layering, and having colour, and fun.
So, the socks really reflected that,
and we had a lot of moves towards digitisation and technology -
then the colourfulness of the socks
and the dynamic patterns of the socks
were able to reflect that, as well.
MUSIC: Blue Monday by New Order
By the mid-'80s, our Walkmans were pulsing with the music
of artists like Madonna, Bananarama and Boy George.
These icons, alongside the mass production
of cheap and stylish clothes,
helped to propel the simple sock into the fashion mainstream.
The high street sees what the artist is wearing
and then starts to capitalise on that
by creating accessories, creating outfits
that have been seen within pop culture.
MUSIC: Gold by Spandau Ballet
As well as pop, a new keep fit craze
had a sporty influence on high street fashion.
You know, we have people like the Green Goddess
happening at that time and Lizzie on TV-am
and people like that who were really going for gold
with the fitness routines on daytime TV.
And then gradually the leg warmers begin to morph into socks. Yes.
And an entrepreneurial 27-year-old capitalised on these new trends,
launching Sock Shop in 1983.
I'm meeting the woman behind this '80s phenomenon,
sockaholic Sophie Mirman.
Hello. Welcome. Come on in. Well, thank you.
I've always been a sock fetishist,
and, in fact, my father always had a drawer of brightly coloured socks
that I used to go and steal from him to wear,
and the idea behind a shop just selling socks and tights
was really my own frustration at shopping,
where I had to go to a large department store,
couldn't find the hosiery department,
and it just seemed like a very inconvenient way of buying something
that should be an everyday necessity.
MUSIC: Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics
The Sock Shop pioneered a new approach to retail,
opening their small, vibrant stores in tube and train stations.
90% of our customers were women.
Which women were you sort of aiming at?
The daily commuter, to Princess Diana,
who was photographed wearing
a pair of our spotty socks.
So, it really was a complete cross-section of society.
# Sweet dreams are made of this... #
The cheeky, brightly coloured designs were a big hit.
Them. Them. Saw them for years! The piggies! Yes.
Those pigs were always a fantastic seller.
And the profits soared.
The rise of Sock Shop was quite meteoric -
but in a matter of five years,
Sock Shop went from a small business with two or three stores
to a much, much bigger business with 50 stores.
When you were at your height, how many socks were you selling?
My goodness. Tens of thousands.
I mean, Sock Shop was turning over millions and millions of pounds.
It was extraordinary.
And all on the back of socks? And all on the back of socks.
MUSIC: Don't You by Simple Minds
After flying high for seven years, a recession hit
and the brand went into administration in 1990 -
but the legacy of those brightly coloured socks lives on today...
..and, for some of us, that's very good news.
Back at the factory in Leicester, I've got my colour-approved yarn
and I'm ready to start making socks.
I'm heading to the knitting plant.
Now, it was news to me, but socks aren't sewn -
they're knitted.
And I'm meeting knitting mechanic Mark.
Mark. Hello, Gregg.
Is this a knitting machine? It certainly is.
It's a single cylinder sock knitting machine, Gregg.
It's actually a bit smaller than I thought it was going to be,
but it's a beautiful thing. Oh, it's nice.
The knitting plant covers more than 460 square metres
and is packed with 50 knitting machines.
We're running 16 hours a day, which gives us about 6,720
socks every day, Gregg.
That's a lot of socks. It's a lot of socks.
Tell me how it works. Right.
First, Gregg, we've got to put the yarn on.
I'll put the cones on, you tie 'em up.
The machine's high-tech...
Brown goes over there, Gregg.
..but loading is still done by hand.
Bring 'em on next, Gregg.
These are not unlike a set of heated rollers.
They're pretty similar, aren't they? I use them regularly.
I'm sure you do.
The eight different yarns are then laced into the machine.
It's like a big and very fiddly version
of your nan's old sewing machine.
It takes some time. And a steady hand.
I mean, you have enormous tweezers on there,
a couple of little holes to get it through.
Yes, you don't want a bottle of wine
on the night before you're threading it up, that's for sure, Gregg.
It takes 20 minutes to put my yarn up -
but that's not all I need to knit my socks.
What's those big ones at the back? Ah, the big ones, there, Gregg,
are the nylon. They're the magic ingredient to the sock.
They give the sock the strength and elasticity.
So we're not cotton socks at all, we're nylon socks.
We're more cotton than nylon.
Without the nylon, the cotton socks wouldn't work?
Without the nylon, you're making a dish cloth, Gregg.
I don't want my sock ending up in the kitchen sink!
So, we're using a mix of 70% cotton and 30% nylon.
So, how many socks are we making with this much thread?
Today, Gregg, you're going to make 120 socks.
That's going to take us around ten hours. All on the same machine?
All on the same machine.
But before we can get knitting, we need a pattern.
To collect mine,
I'm heading upstairs to the design department to meet the woman
in charge, Carol Bielak.
She's been at the factory for 32 years!
Carol. Hello.
How many pairs of socks do you think you may have designed?
Ooh, around 6,000 or more.
Really?! Yeah.
And did you design this one, the Kilburn?
I did, yes.
We play around with colour, with different scales of stripes,
and this one, we found, was really well-balanced throughout the sock.
Nowadays, most socks are designed by a computer,
but Carol first drew the pattern for my sock by hand on graph paper.
In this particular sock,
we have 475 courses, and "courses" is each row.
My sock pattern is ten rows navy...
So from here, the machine will start knitting.
..and the coloured stripes are all nine rows.
And then they go nine times, and that makes up the green. Yeah.
Then ten times again makes up the blue.
Nine times again, the green. Exactly.
All the way through. Crying out loud.
But the pattern isn't just graph paper.
Here, you will see, there's 18 pages...
What?! ..of different steps to make this sock,
saying how many courses,
where it should knit the heel and toe...
My grandmother used to have knitting patterns.
They were a quarter of the size of that!
So how did you get all of that information
into a sewing machine? The knitting machine,
it's all stored on a USB stick.
Thank you, Carol. Bless you.
And bless your cotton socks! SHE LAUGHS
Now I've got my knitting pattern,
I'm heading back down to the knitting plant.
And there's no hanging about - Mark's raring to go!
Green button, Gregg.
We're not a touch screen.
We're not that modern.
You ready? This is a historic moment.
This is the first time anyone in the UK has ever seen a Gregg sock.
We're making the sock.
That finger has launched so many products
it's unbelievable. The magic finger.
From cream cakes to socks, that finger.
This crazy contraption is spinning at 200 revolutions per minute.
To make each sock takes 2km of yarn.
After it comes off the cone, it goes through the yarn guide.
Then the yarn counting sensor takes a record of the amount of thread
being used, which is kept taut by the yarn take-up devices,
before it passes through the feeders ready to be fed to the needles.
Whoa.
All the threads end up in the centre of the machine,
where the knitting magic happens.
Well, that's incredible.
In the mouth of that monster is the beginnings of a sock.
I kind of imagined it would be flat,
and the needles would go backwards and forwards
and a sock would emerge -
but this is like inside a tube.
The needles are housed in a cylinder.
The cylinder is continuously rotating.
The round cylinder is called the dial,
and it's loaded with 200 needles,
which knit each sock as an individual tube.
Looking down into the mouth of a mythical beast -
and the teeth of that beast,
they're all the needles,
but they're constantly doing this thing.
The needles inside the machine
aren't pointed like knitting needles at home.
They are bent at the top like crochet hooks
and are called latch needles.
As they revolve three times a second, they catch the yarn,
make a loop and add a stitch to the row below.
The computer program tells the machine when to feed
in a new colour.
In this one sock alone,
we have 200 stitches on one course,
475 courses -
in total, 95,000 different stitches. No way!
Nearly 100,000 stitches in a sock?
How long do you reckon it's taking to make one sock?
It's just a tad over five minutes.
In the world of automated production, that sounds like a lot -
but when you consider, really, they are still knitting needles,
that is immense.
It's not bad going. As good as my mum is,
she'd never do it that quick.
And like clockwork, five minutes later...
Wahey! There she blows, Gregg.
..out pops the first-ever Gregg sock.
Wait a minute.
What's all that? Look. It's got an 'ole at both ends!
That's not a sock, that's a leg warmer!
I can't believe you went through all that,
and it's not sewn up at the end.
I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest.
It's a beautifully made sock, but I thought it'd be complete.
What we have to do, Gregg, is take that to another department
and we'll close the toe. Oh, really?
So are we going to make the other 119 socks now, then?
Ah, not before we get the sock past our quality control department.
She's going to send it back - it's got an 'ole in the end.
Right now, I don't have a HOLE lot of confidence in my sock,
but I'm heading off to quality control where I'm meeting Ola.
Ola? Come in. Yeah.
Can you show me how to quality control my sock, please?
Yes, I will. Now, listen, I'm fond of this sock, all right?
So be gentle with it.
OK. The first thing to do is to check the pattern.
See if the pattern is the same? Yes.
Two green, two green. Two grey, two grey.
Two brown, two brown. Two blue, two blue.
Two pink, two pink, two green... Good.
Whew! Pass. All right, I'll go now.
No, don't go yet.
Ola's putting my sock through a battery of eight tests.
Yeah, it's good.
The factory produces ten different sizes of sock.
Mine needs to be a perfect 12.
Good.
That's another tick -
but it's not over yet for my sock.
Your next step is the leg lateral and the foot lateral.
We are checking it on the rack here.
The rack?!
Ola's not kidding.
This instrument of torture measures the give
in the sock width wise.
OK.
My sock is 9cm wide, but this dastardly machine...
..stretches it to more than double.
It's supposed to be 23.
It's 23. Good.
Why do you do that?
Because we don't want it to be too tight on the foot
or in the leg.
It's the nylon thread that makes the sock stretchy.
And now the foot.
Yes. Nylon's less than half a millimetre thick,
but this thread can stretch to twice as long as cotton yarn.
23.5.
Good. You are torturing socks.
I love doing this work.
I've been doing it for the past 15 years.
Now we want to check the lengths.
How much more can one sock take?
Good. We've done it?
Yes. Get in there, sock.
There's still a hole in my sock where the toe should be,
but that's a result. Good!
That shouldn't make me that happy, but it has.
Good. Thank you very much. You're welcome.
So my toeless sock has been stretched
to within an inch of its life.
She passed it! Fantastic! 119 to go.
And now we can crack on with the full batch.
Sock away! Sock away.
If you work on your feet all day,
you can expect them to get a bit hot and sweaty -
but could the sock you're wearing be part of the problem?
Cherry's finding out.
It's just a part of life that feet smell -
some slightly more than others -
but can socks help or hinder this stinky situation?
There's a huge range of socks out there,
and some claim to prevent pong altogether -
but before I put them to the test, I want to know what causes the whiff
in the first place.
I've come to Northumbria University to meet medical microbiologist
Dr Clare Lanyon...
Hello there!
..who specialises in the science of stink.
Why do we get smelly feet?
The reason we get particularly smelly feet
is there's a lot of bacteria on our feet.
We have a lot more sweat glands per square inch of our feet
than we do in any other part of the body.
So when we sweat, it creates a thin layer of water.
That layer of water likes to interact with the bacteria
and fungi on our feet, and that's what produces the smells.
It's a dream team for odours to be produced.
But can I defeat this stinky dream team by choosing the right sock?
I'm going to road test three different types
wearing each pair for a ten-hour day
before putting them under Clare's microscope.
DING!
Day one, and I'm testing 100% cotton.
I really don't feel like doing any exercise,
but in the name of science and fairness,
I'm going to go on a run.
Cotton is a naturally breathable fibre.
I'm hoping that helps.
SHE PANTS
DING!
Day two of the stinky sock challenge,
and today we're trying out synthetic socks.
These ones aren't as breathable, but claim to soak up less sweat,
DING! Just one more pair to go.
And we're testing out the antibacterial socks.
These are supposed to kill the bacteria causing smells
using copper woven into the sock.
After three hot and sticky days, the courier's arrived
to transport my socks to Clare's lab.
All right? Thanks, Gary.
Bye. Thanks. Bye-bye.
Sorry, Gary!
A week later, and the tests are back.
I mean, the results are pretty shocking, really.
Oh, no! Compared between the two.
First, Clare shows me the culture taken directly from my bare feet
to assess the odours that they produce naturally
without socks.
That's my bacteria family.
And everybody has bacteria on their feet,
regardless of how clean that you are,
or how clean that you think that you're going to be.
What does it smell like? Oh, it's very yeasty.
Yeah. Very bready.
So, Clare, of the three pairs of socks
that I lovingly donated to you - you're welcome -
which of them was the least stinky?
I think we should have a look.
Clare took swabs of the bacteria from inside each sock,
which were then carefully cultured for five days in the lab.
So which sock is the least stinky?
First up, cotton.
This is what you would expect.
This is exactly what we would expect to see.
Haven't got one particular organism dominating the other.
But has the mix of bacteria on the cotton contributed
to the aroma of my feet?
It smells similar to your skin swab.
Still got that yeasty, fermenty smell on there.
So nothing particularly bad has grown as a result
of you wearing that cotton sock.
So that's a good result for the cotton socks.
Exactly.
So what about the synthetic sock?
Look at the comparison there. Oh, wow.
That's very, very different.
That's really uniform. It looks like a...just like a gel.
Well, that's because there's so much bacteria on there,
we can't actually see the individual colonies any more.
It's designed to pull the sweat away from the foot,
but in doing so, it holds it into that material.
But does this make the synthetic sock smellier?
Yeah, you can smell... Are your eyes watering? A little.
I feel really bonded to you, Clare,
because no-one's smelt me like you've smelt me.
It is quite pongy. Bleurgh!
That is... That is spicy.
Last up, antibacterial.
The antibacterial sock,
I would expect to be much cleaner. And that is the claim of the sock.
They tend to have copper fibre woven into them.
Metals like copper have a natural ability to kill bacteria
by rupturing their cell walls.
But we've got a domination of a particular organism.
And this organism is a spore former, which means it's very resistant
in the environment.
Bacteria which form spores are tougher to kill.
And it looks like my antibac sock has struggled to do the job.
This organism produces very smelly smells.
Oh, gosh, it smells like wee!
It does smell like urine.
The sock that claimed to be antibacterial
reduced the number of bacteria that we were able to recover
post wearing, so it didn't stop the growth of the bacteria
that created the most pungent smell.
Is there a sock that completely eliminates bacteria? No.
And we wouldn't be able to survive and live without bacteria
in and on our body. They're very much our friends.
The bacteria is there to regulate skin health.
It's that as part of our first line of defence.
And we shouldn't be frightened of having bacteria on our feet -
it's a good thing.
So while all my socks did give off a hint of a whiff,
there was a clear winner -
cotton.
Well, can I have my socks back?
Unfortunately, no, because we now have to treat them
as a biohazard material.
So, unfortunately, Cherry, they've been incinerated.
My socks are a biohazard. I think that's where I'll leave.
In Leicester, we're over 13 hours into the production process
and my 120 socks are still a holy mess.
Get your socks! They're lovely. Keep your feet warm.
I'm meeting my mate Simon again.
Hello. I have got a basket of socks.
Yes.
What on earth is that?
This is our sock sucker. A what?
Our sock sucker.
What does a sock sucker do?
It sucks the sock inside out.
Wh... Why do you want to suck a sock inside out, Simon?
Because on the next process, where the toe has to be closed,
the socks have to be inside out.
Is there a technical name for that? It's a sock turner,
but we like to call it a sock sucker. May I?
Definitely. Cos that doesn't look particularly technical.
Put the top end in first.
Onto the pole, now let it go. Ha-ha!
GREGG GIGGLES GIDDILY
The sock sucker is like a powerful vacuum cleaner nozzle.
Ah! Fantastic. Brilliant. Fantastic.
And who hasn't lost a sock up one of them?
How many socks can an experienced sock sucker suck?
A sock sucker can suck, in a day,
9,000 socks.
That's about 20 socks a minute.
Really? Really - very quick.
Can you time me? See how many I can do?
Definitely.
Ready, steady... Go!
Oh, it's getting them off that's the...
Sock suckers! Look at that. I'm not doing bad.
How many seconds left? Two seconds left.
13 socks. Yes! That's not bad, but... Pass me a sock.
Not turned properly.
You've got no idea how crestfallen I am.
I thought I was doing really well.
If you don't stretch it all the way up the pole,
it won't turn itself completely around.
So I've got 120 of these to do, right? And that's my batch.
Look at me, I've mastered this machine now.
I don't need Simon.
No-one saw that, right?
I don't need Simon. HE LAUGHS
# I'm just upside down... #
Fun and games aside,
it's an essential part of the process
to get the socks inside out before the toes
are stitched together.
Last one.
Six minutes later, hey presto, ten dozen inside-out socks.
I'm taking them to the toe linking department
where I'm meeting expert sock finisher Sharon.
Sharon. Hello, Gregg. I've made a load of socks, but they need fixing
cos they've got an 'ole at both ends. That's right.
And what do you do? I sew one of the ends up.
How do you link the two ends of the sock?
Well, if you can see all the little stitches there,
you have to thread it on the points.
You have to get the points in those holes?
Yeah.
Sharon has to match up the stitches perfectly
from the top and bottom edges of the toe.
Wow!
If she misses a stitch, it'll mean the toe has a hole in it.
Well, that is really, really tricky.
And that means one ruined sock.
Why do you do this job?
Cos I like it.
It's enjoyable to see the end product.
I've been here 33 years.
You're kidding me! Since you were five years old?
Yeah. I wish...
The machine revolves every four minutes.
If I wasn't bothering her, Sharon could do four or five socks at once.
How old is that machine? It's the machine I've had 33 years.
Wow.
Good bit of old-fashioned engineering, right? It is, yeah.
Old faithful, I call it.
Cos I've been going since the '60s,
and I break down at least three times a month!
So, now what's going to happen to that sock?
It'll go round to the knives.
It will cut the excess yarn off and then it will get stitched up
and then the excess thread gets cut off.
The factory does have knitting machines that turn out socks
with toes already closed,
but for their top of the range products...
The human touch is best.
And then when it's done the clippers,
hopefully, we should have a perfect sock.
Look at that!
And how many socks do you do?
About 360 a day.
How long does it take you to do each sock?
About 45 seconds.
Wow! That's a skilful job.
It is, very skilled.
Today, I've knitted over 11 million stitches to make my batch of socks,
which beats my previous knitting record by, well, 11 million.
As Ruth's been finding out,
during the First World War
using the right stitch could save lives.
MUSIC: The Last Post
More than three quarters of a million British soldiers died
during the Great War.
Charge!
BATTLE CRIES
As many as 75,000 of those casualties
could probably have been prevented by a simple pair of socks.
To discover the significance of the humble sock during World War I
I've come to this village hall in Hampshire to meet Joyce Meader,
a military historical knitting expert.
What on earth is so important about socks and the First World War?
You only got issued two pairs by the British army.
Men would wash them out in these grubby holes
and either pop them under their armpits to dry out
or in their groin.
But that didn't help the trench foot. What exactly is trench foot?
Fungal infection that looks a bit like frostbite
and it just eats your feet away because they're soggy all the time,
and they end up having legs and feet amputated.
The trench warfare of the First World War battlefields
created appalling sodden conditions.
The suffering was described in letters home.
"I am wet through to the skin."
"I've heard men scream with the pain."
"How can you expect men to live in this?"
Trench foot was rampant and in severe cases fatal,
as it led to gangrene and sepsis.
So, all these men go through an enormous amount of suffering
for the lack of socks. Very much so, yes.
Minister of War Lord Kitchener drafted in an army of women
back home to knit supplies for men at the front,
but some of the home-made socks had rough seams that were hard
on the soldiers' feet.
Men are getting blisters,
and, of course, if you've got a blister,
then you get infection in it.
So, in 1915, Kitchener issued a new sock design to knitting groups
around the country to try and solve the painful issue.
There is this absolutely wonderful thing called "Kitchener stitch",
which is a way to finish off the toe
so you don't get a seam
which can rub on to your toes when you're marching.
Nobody can find if Kitchener actually invented this.
CHERRY LAUGHS
Or had just got his name.
Whether it was devised by Kitchener or not,
this clever stitch grafted together the two sides of the sock smoothly.
So, there was no painful seam at the toe.
So, it's a stitch done with a needle.. Oh!
..to join the two together.
Yeah, well, theoretically it looks fine!
Could I pass all my socks on to you
for you to do the Kitchener stitch on?!
Hm. I don't think I was cut out for 1915...
Attention!
To put the Kitchener stitch to the test,
we've enlisted the help of a band of World War I re-enactors.
Gentlemen, I understand you're in need of some new socks.
Yes.
THEY LAUGH
Joyce has brought along an odd pair for each soldier,
one Kitchener stitch on the left foot and a home-made rough seam
on the right.
Hopefully, if you march about for ages and get nice sore feet,
we'll get some sort of indication of whether the Kitchener stitch
really works. Indeed, yes.
Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. Please take it away.
Let's go.
The men are in the uniform
of the Royal Warwickshire Infantry Regiment,
which fought at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.
They'll undertake World War I combat drills in exact replica kit
with packs of almost 50 pounds.
Detail ready for manoeuvres, sir.
How will the socks stand up to 40 minutes of training
on a sweltering day?
Left, right. Left, right.
Halt!
Eyes right!
MUSIC: The British Grenadiers
Bayonet!
Charge!
So, what's the verdict? For me, that one's more comfortable,
particularly because I can feel the seam under the pads of the toes,
so I think that would get quite uncomfortable after a while.
It's really worked its way round, hasn't it?
You'd get blisters from that probably quite quickly.
So, how are you finding it?
Can definitely see a good difference between Kitchener and pre-war.
This ridge here, after a mile, it would begin to turn into a blister.
Yeah, there's quite a lot there, isn't there? Like a hard piece...
Yeah. ..right on the end of your toes.
Yeah, yeah.
So, what we think then, is that there's a real difference in feel?
Yeah. So Kitchener stitch is actually a thing, and a good thing.
Yeah. I like the Kitchener socks.
So, a simple change to a stitch
showed the importance of the humble sock.
It made such an enormous difference to the comfort
and indeed the fighting fitness of millions of Tommies.
At the factory, I'm over 15 hours into production of the Kilburn sock.
My batch have had their toes stitched together
so I'm heading to the wet process department
to meet factory veteran Adie Markham.
He's been in socks his whole working life, as it were.
Sir, I'm told to bring my batch of socks to you. That's right.
What happens to them now?
They'll go into the washing machine.
Why are we going to wash these socks? No-one's worn them.
What it will do is relax the yarn, dampen it,
make it better for pressing.
Give a nice finish.
Just throw them in there with that lot? Yeah. Straight in.
Pull down. Mind your fingers.
The green button. That one? Yeah.
Unlike a washing machine at home,
this cleans the socks using steam mixed with fabric softener
heated to 140 degrees Celsius.
LOUD FLUTTERING STEAM
Frightened the life out of me, that did!
Washing gets rid of any dirt the socks have picked up in the factory
and shrinks the fibres to give them a smooth finish.
So, how many socks can that handle?
Up to 750 socks, 30kg.
After three minutes they're done...
That tells you you're finished.
Do you know my first job when I left school was in a dry cleaners?
Was it? Yeah!
..and ready for the next process.
Right, off to the ironing room. Let's go.
I don't mind ironing, you know. I'm pretty good at shirts. Off we go.
I've never in my life ironed a pair of socks.
Ha-ha!
What is that?
This is the ironing machine.
How many socks does it do? 30 legs on there.
The boards are very hot.
Oh, crikey! Hot legs, right? Yeah.
Thank you very much. I've been working out.
ADIE LAUGHS
You've got chef's hands.
You want to have a go, then? You've got to be quite quick, haven't you?
Yep. Wahey!
It's a lot easier if you... Oh! Ha-ha!
Wrong way round. Oh! Ho-ho!
Whoa!
That's level with the toe.
Oh! They should be together there.
Every time I put one he alters it!
Got to all be level.
Now that's perfect.
The lines are out there, look.
GREGG GROANS Get out of it!
I can't hold up production
so we need to ramp it up to full speed,
but this is one hot job.
Eurgh! I don't like it when they move.
All right, mate, hat's off to you, because that is skilful and hot.
Can you show me what's in this machine? I can.
As my socks waltz off in to the machine,
the steam and the hot metal legs
give them the perfect press at 130 degrees Celsius
in just three minutes,
and the attention to detail doesn't end there.
There's a little clamp here pulling the socks up and down.
What's it doing?
Basically getting them down to the right leg length for your socks,
12 inch, so 120 socks all measure exactly the same size.
My mum used to do that before I went to school every day.
I had to stop it when I was 17. People were laughing at me!
As it disappears around the corner, where's it going?
Going in to a drying chamber.
145 degrees in there.
Why do you need to dry it?
So it sets the shape of the sock.
No-one would believe that much attention goes into something
as simple as a sock.
No, they wouldn't. Until they know.
A bit like me, the socks are too hot to handle, so an automatic arm
pulls the sock off the leg and sends it down a slide,
stacking them neatly into piles, ready to be paired.
A huge amount of cotton is used to make not just socks,
but most of the clothes we wear
and keeping up with demand is having a big impact on the planet.
Cherry's been finding out
about a new environmentally friendly way of growing it.
Cotton is normally grown in warm subtropical climates
across the globe, from America's Great Plains
to the rural heart of India.
But can you guess which exotic, balmy part of the world I've come to
to harvest this year's crop?
Well, believe it or not, I'm in Essex.
# We are young, we run green...#
These ten foot British cotton plants
are being grown in a 100 square metre greenhouse
run by Ed Hill and Ed Brial.
Well, they do say two Eds are better than one.
You must be Ed and you must be Ed.
They formed their company, hydroCotton,
to try and change the way we grow it.
This is not what I expected a cotton field to look like.
You'd actually be right. It's not your typical cotton field.
What are the problems with growing cotton at the moment?
So, cotton is generally regarded
as one of the world's thirstiest and dirtiest crops.
So, a pair of jeans, for example,
can take up to 10,000 litres of water to grow.
On top of that, 16% of the world's insecticides
are used for growing cotton.
So, how are you going to rectify that?
We're using new technologies,
which allows us to reduce the amount of water used by up to 80%.
We buy an astonishing 80 billion garments globally each year,
and a quarter of that is cotton fabric.
In an effort to reduce the impact
of this fast fashion on the environment,
the Eds are pioneering a more sustainable way of growing cotton.
Wow. So, you've grown a jungle without any soil? Correct.
The plants are growing in coconut husk
and each one gets its food and water delivered through drip lines.
The system, called hydroponics, is already used to grow salad,
but this is a first for cotton.
It really is like an IV that you would get in hospital.
Exactly. Oh, is it feeding time?
It is. Look! Exactly.
So, the plants are getting their nutrient rich water.
Look, I won't keep it up for too long.
I don't want this plant to get thirsty.
But the other big issue with traditional cotton farming
is its reliance on pesticides.
Instead of chemicals,
Ed and Ed are using insects called lacewings to control bad bugs
like aphids or whitefly.
Just 500 lacewing larvae
will devour 150,000 aphids in just two weeks.
Let's go insect hunting. It's just what I want to do!
OK, where are they?
This is what we call a release box.
Basically, we get insects.
We put their eggs inside this box, they hatch out,
they go into the greenhouse,
and they basically eat all the bad insects
that we don't want to be in here.
So, you introduce these bugs.
What exactly are they looking for?
So, a lacewing, which I have here, their larvae will go out
and they will search for things like whitefly and aphids
and they will kind of eat on those.
For us, the alternative would be kind of going in here, you know,
in protective clothing and spraying a lot of insecticide and pesticide.
So, the first British cotton crop requires far fewer chemicals
and uses much less water -
but what does it look and feel like?
Hey, Ed, have you got some cotton that you think's ready?
Yeah, I think these guys are perfect.
Is that what you might call ripe or ready to harvest?
Yeah, perfect, perfectly ripe.
You can just grab some if you want.
It takes six months for a crop to ripen.
Oh, my gosh, it's so soft. It just comes straight out.
The round fluffy clumps are called bolls,
and each one contains over 250,000 cotton fibres.
This small crop from 400 plants
will eventually be enough to make 40 T-shirts.
Made it! Out of the jungle!
You have proved that this technique works.
Where do you go next?
We're looking to run our pilots next year.
We want to approve the product in pre-existing large cotton markets
across South Asia, so countries like India.
Where they plan to use cost efficient polytunnels
rather than greenhouses to cover the crop.
What you're doing here is really innovative.
I just really hope that this works globally.
Fingers crossed.
It's been over 16 hours since my cotton yarn entered the factory.
My socks have been knitted,
tortured,
and steamed.
Now they're off to the packing department for one last test
by examiner Maxine James.
I can tell you right now this one's perfect.
SHE LAUGHS
Take your tape measure.
That's a foot.
It's slightly ironic that the sock is a foot.
Check your linkings. Linkings, linkings...
That's the sewing of the toe, right? It is, yeah. These are fine.
Then I check the 'eels.
What do you check with the heels?
Just in case there's any more 'oles in the 'eels.
Holes in an 'eel. Yep.
You drop your aitches like I do!
SHE LAUGHS
And then, start pairing.
Maxine, seriously, do you have to look at every single sock
that comes through? Yes, I do.
How many do you do at a time? About ten dozen an hour.
What?!
You want this to come out, leave here absolutely perfect.
Course I do. The customer expects them to be perfect.
Even if they roll them up into a little ball
and throw them in the drawer afterwards.
Well, you shouldn't do that, really,
because it affects the quality of the yarn.
So, what I would do is, just give them a little fold like that.
Don't tell me you're going to hang them up!
And then just place them in the drawer like that.
I can't believe, actually,
that so much of what goes on here is done by eye and by hand.
Yes, it is.
So, the Gregg socks measure up to Maxine's high standards
Then Yvonne Taylor takes over to iron a stamp on each pair.
Put your finger on that. That's it. Hold that.
Press it down hard. That's enough.
You said press it down hard... Oh, look at that.
There you are. I'm good at this lark. They're lovely.
And a care label is stitched on.
Are you going to stick a special one on there saying that I made it?
Er, no, I'm afraid not. I think you're missing a trick.
I'll talk to the management.
Finally, my socks are ready for boxing up by Marie James.
Proof the factory's a family affair,
she's Maxine's sister in law,
and must be the quickest sock packer in the Midlands.
It takes Marie just 20 minutes
to pack my 60 pairs of finished socks.
Thank you, Marie.
And now they're ready to head out the door.
In dispatch, my favourite sock sucker, Simon.
Hello, Simon. Hi.
What you have here are beautifully made, completed, packaged socks.
I did that. Well, some of it.
How many pair of socks are you stocking in this warehouse?
We stock probably around 210,000 pairs at this moment.
I don't suppose you know the monetary value of those socks?
It's just under £3 million worth.
Under three million quid's worth of socks?
Under three million quid's worth of socks, yes!
The sock stocks in the factory are ready for dispatch
across the country.
In the UK, most are sold in the southeast,
but they've got lots of fans in Scotland, too,
and they're shipped abroad.
They're especially keen on traditional British socks
in America and Japan.
Unlike any other factory I've visited,
we're back out on the pavement.
Fabulous, my friend. How many do you send out every day?
Roughly around 2,500 pairs a day.
How many is that a week?
15,000 pairs a week. 15,000 pairs of socks!
Right. Come on! Let's go.
Let's put the kettle on, shall we? Definitely.
It's hard work, all that making socks, innit?
Do you know what? I've never, ever considered how my socks are made,
but now I've seen the level of precision and care in this factory,
I am really impressed.
Each pair of my colourful socks
contains nearly 200,000 stitches.
I love the wonderful, crazy collection of machines
that produce over 30,000 pairs a week,
and I really love that they've all been touched
by highly skilled human hands.
So, from the cotton fields of Egypt via Italy
to the streets of Leicester -
that is quite a journey for the humble sock.