By
Bella Druckman,
a writer at the Strategist covering Gen Z shopping habits and fashion.
She joined the Strategist in 2024. Previously, she wrote about gifts at Shop Today.
While Brooklyn-based writer and millennial Rebecca Firkser, 33, and her Gen-Z sibling, 29, are just four years apart, Firsker says, “we are of completely different generations.” Over the years, they’ve persuaded her to reconsider low-rise jeans, advised her on whether to roll up her T-shirt sleeves, and, during a recent laundry session, delivered some rather surprising news: Ankle socks are okay again. For anyone who followed the Great Sock Height Debate of 2024, this may come as a surprise — it certainly did for Firkser. At the time, Gen-Zers (at least those on TikTok) alleged that they could tell how old you were depending on your sock height: Ankle socks gave away that you were a millennial, while crew socks signified you were Gen Z. The kerfuffle has since been called a “millennial Gen Z culture war” in Cosmopolitan and a “sock war” in the New York Times. (Over here at the Strategist, we offered a counterargument: Everyone should be wearing quarter-socks, which hit a couple inches above your ankle.) Two years later, though, it seems Gen Z has changed its mind. Of the 50 Gen-Zers I surveyed for this story, just eight said they still preferred crew socks to ankle socks.
