Swedish Sock Brand Gococo Arrives...

The thicker Gococo Trekking sock mixes Cocona fibres with wool along with all the zoning and venting you'd expect.

Those little Cocona swing-tags tell you that activated carbon mixed in with the fibres increases both wicking and improves drying times.

Well, for starters, you have to admit that Gococo is quite a cool name in a Eurovision Song Contest sort of way. It's a new Swedish brand started in 2009 by twin sisters and dedicated to producing, well, equally cool socks.

An educated guess is that the 'coco' bit of the name comes from Cocona, which the brand uses in its socks mixed with other sock-friendly materials and yarns like wool and polyamide. It's cool stuff, made from carbonised coconut shells which effectively massively increase the surface area of the polyester-based fabric fibres at a microscopic level and, as a result, dratically speeds up both wicking and drying times.  We like it.

Of course there's more to modern socks than just fabrics and both the Trekking and Outdoor Sport models we have here have all the technical features you'd expect from a 21st Century sock. That means zoned, localised padding in crucial areas - the publicity material calls it 'Teddy' but we think they mean 'Terry', though the former sounds nicer - including toe, heel and ball of foot, there are strategic elasticated areas for fit and breathable, 'Climate Control' zones in the lighter weight Outdoors Sport model. 

And both models use left and right specific design with 'L' and 'R' markers embroidered on each sock for ease of use. Finally both socks are wool based and even the lighter model is intended for cooler conditions.

Anyway, interesting stuff. They're available in the UK from this autumn and priced at £17 for the Trekking and £15 for the Outdoor Sport, so premium stuff. 

More information about the brand and some ace coloured socks at www.gococo.se/en/.