Not sure how many of you out there (especially menfolk) have found socks beneath the tree or have given them to your close ones but for years to come, I suggest that Japanese hosiery label Ayamé is the sock brand choice to give if you want to combine utility and visual brilliance. I received a soggy brown papered package bang on Christmas Eve all the way from Japan stuffed full of the most colourful stocking fillers. The patterns are distinctive and unique to Aya Agaoka, who started Ayamé in 2007, wanting to create a niche in legwear that would combine the know-how of Japanese craftsmen with the outer limits of her own imagination. Working with the experienced hosiery factories of the Nara prefecture, Aygaoka pushes boundaries of knit techniques and yarn choices to create feats (*uh-huh-huh*) of technical accomplishment which when you pull on to your feet for the very first time, makes you wriggle your toes and do a little new sock jig. Ok, just me who does the new sock dance jig.