Tube socks were
de rigueur in the ‘70s. These extra long, heeless socks with elastic stay up bands at the top were long time mainstays of
basketball players. As pro basketball became increasingly popular in the ‘70s, they became very trendy among American youths. Tube socks were universally white with 2 or 3 colored bands at the top. People usually wore them with very short
athletic shorts. Although athletic in nature, people shamelessly paraded around in short shorts and tube socks as casual street wear. Tube socks continued to remain popular in the ‘80s.
Changing fashions in shorts eventually doomed tube socks. Shorts became longer. Tube socks no longer looked right with longer shorts. As the tube sock
craze faded in America, Japanese boys became to adopt tube socks in the ‘90s, rather definitely wearing the longer socks with
short pants.