Catherine Tough, Queen Of Socks

November 13, 2026

by the gentle author

Tickets available for Sarah Ainslie’s illustrated lecture at 12:15pm tomorrow Saturday 14th November at the Art Workers Guild as part of the Bloomsbury Jamboree. Click here to book

Catherine Tough will be selling her socks at the Bloomsbury Jamboree tomorrow at the Art Workers’ Guild but can usually be found in Broadway Market on Saturdays

Catherine Tough

Each year at this time, for more years than I can remember, I walk up to Broadway Market and buy a new pair of striped woollen socks from Catherine Tough to see me through the winter. These are talismanic items of clothing for me, I believe I shall always be safe and warm when I am wearing them. One year, I bought two of her hot water bottle covers as well and I credit them with getting me through the pandemic.

So, as you will understand, it was a great delight when Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I paid a visit to Catherine Tough’s headquarters in the Lea Bridge Rd recently to meet the celebrated sock designer and creative mastermind behind this beloved endeavour.

Once I sat down with Catherine, I was impressed to discover that what I only knew as stall in Broadway market was, in fact, a global enterprise.

‘My dad’s a theoretical physicist and my mum studied biology, but she always made things. She had a knitting machine and a spinning wheel and she constantly had a craft project on the go. We were a creative family. I was always making things and would hand-knit things myself.

I studied for a BA in constructed textiles at High Wycombe, specialising in knitting. From there I went to the Royal College of Art to do an MA, again in constructed textiles. For my degree show I did giant knitting with broom handles! From there I worked freelance for companies, making bespoke labour-intensive textile products, socks and hot water bottle covers among other things, but I wanted to turn it into a sustainable business. In 1999, I attended the Top Draw trade show at Olympia with a selection of my socks, scarves and hot water bottle covers, and it literally just took off with wholesale orders. I began with a knitting machine in my bedroom in a rented flat in Shepherds Bush and I developed a very strong right arm from making everything myself.

Then I moved to the Finchley Rd and I had to carry my industrial knitting machine up three flights of stairs, which it nearly killed me. The floorboards used to creak at night when I was working and I was convinced the floor was going to collapse, it was so heavy. I progressed from there, I found people to help me knit and, eventually, I got a studio. I built the business to the stage where I needed to work with factories because there was only so much I could knit myself and I was going crazy. To start with, a manufacturer in Wales made the socks for us, then I began working with an agent in Portugal, which is where the socks are knitted today, and we have been good friends for twenty years now.

We sell our socks worldwide. We have done trade fairs in America, Canada and Japan, and we sell online directly to customers all around the world. Chloe has worked with me for eighteen years now, we work together on the designs and she handles the production in the studio and despatching orders. Everyone else I work with is freelance, the bookkeeper, the people who do the marketing etc. I do not spend much time knitting anything anymore which is a shame. I sit at my desk all day and organise the sales and all the systems. You could not run a business like this without understanding the technicalities. It is a seasonal business with the majority of our sales in the last quarter of the year when we have to make all our income to cover the production of the next year’s stock. The business is very cold weather dependent. We do really well when it is freezing cold!

I love doing this, I don’t ever not want to come to work. The most exciting weeks of the year are when we design the new range. We have our formulas of things that work, such as stripes, but each season we choose new colours, try different colour combinations and alter the proportions of the stripe. Being in Broadway Market is very good for spotting fashion trends, I don’t have to go and do research because it all just walks past me there!’