Every family has a big brother who laughs at your clothes. Michael Jackson grew up with a whole row of them.
His older brothers sang right beside him in the Jackson 5, the family group that made the Jacksons famous when Michael was still a little kid. They were family, and in a house full of brothers nobody got a free pass on fashion.
And there was one thing Michael kept wearing that they just couldn’t let go.
He wore it anyway. Then he wore it for years.
The thing they picked on wasn’t flashy at all. It sat way down by his ankles. It was a plain pair of white socks.
Michael later admitted he never saw the craze coming. “I admit I love starting trends, but I never thought wearing white socks would catch on,” he said, in words AnOther Magazine quoted in 2012.
Back then, white socks were about as uncool as it got. In Michael’s own words, “Not too long ago it was considered extremely square to wear them…but I never stopped.”
His brothers made sure he heard about it. They even had a name for him because of those socks. They called him “a dip,” which was old slang for a goofball or a square, the kid who’s a little out of step with everybody else.
Michael’s answer to that? “My brothers would call me a dip, but I didn’t care…and now it’s cool again!”
The white socks became part of his famous look with the sharp tuxedo he wore for his 1979 album “Off the Wall.” His official video for “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” lets you see that tuxedo look in action, with Michael dancing in it full length.
Michael dancing in his “Off the Wall” tuxedo look
So were the socks just Michael being stubborn? Not quite. They had a job to do.
Michael Bush designed Michael’s stage clothes for about 25 years. In his 2012 book “The King of Style,” he wrote that Michael loved his white socks for three reasons. And when it came to the stage, Bush said, the socks were the answer because they caught the light.
Michael explained it the same way in a TV Guide interview that was later reprinted in a 2004 book. He was asked who came up with things like the glove and the white socks, and he said he wanted a bit of light on his feet. “So I wore the white socks.”
Those feet moved fast. Under bright stage lights, a flash of white gave the crowd something to follow. Writers at nss magazine put it this way: the look was “functional before being aesthetic,” because “Michael wanted the audience not to miss a single movement of his feet.”
It caught on off the stage too. Rolled white socks turned into a big fashion trend among young fans, nss magazine says.
If you’d like to hear about Michael’s style from the people who actually made his clothes, Good Morning America sat down with two of his costume designers, Michael Bush and Dennis Tompkins.
Michael’s costume designers talk about dressing him
Somewhere along the way, the little brother who got called a dip ended up setting the trend.
His brothers never did talk him out of those socks. And once you know the story, it’s hard to watch one of his old performances without glancing down at his feet.