It's quite simple really.
Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing at all.
Since Pantherella was sold a few years back
to the H.J.Hall Sock Company, a maker of
inexpensive English socks, they have done
nothing to keep pace
with the improvements being made by the
forward-looking Marcoliani of Milan, Italy.
When Marcoliani bought newer, finer,
more precise sock knitting machines, H.J.
Hall's Pantherella stood idly by. When
Marcoliani improved
their basic ExtraFine Merino dress sock to
80% natural fibre, Pantherella was content to
leave theirs at 70%. When Marcoliani did the
same with their 80% Cotton Lisle dress sock,
Pantherella again ignored the writing on the
wall. Finally, when Marcoliani introduced
their exciting 80% Pima Cotton Lisle Wide
Rib, Pantherella again did ... abolutely
nothing.
When Marcoliani exceeded all that had gone
before by introducing 100% ExtraFine Merino
stretch dress socks ... and the same in
100% Cotton Lisle ... Pantherella didn't even
notice.
And they also didn't notice that
Marcoliani had not only increased the natural
fiber percentage by more than 12% but that
the Italians had also made their dress socks
more than an inch longer!
As responsible retailers, we must keep a
close eye on changes such as these. Rather
than look merely at the window dressing, we
took it upon ourselves to do a comparative
study.
We learned such interesting things as the
fact that Pantherella's 70% Merino/30% Nylon
dress sock is not only lacking in natural
fiber, but at a mere 17.25" long is almost 2"
shorter than Marcoliani's 19" Long, 80% Merino
competitor!
In sum, Pantherella has been bested ... and in
keeping with our overarching policy of
offering only
the best, we have upgraded our basic dress
sock line to Marcoliani ... just as we did
two years ago with the majority of our
fashion and novelty socks.
Interested in the facts? You can read the
entire
Top
Quality Sock Comparison Study in complete
detail.
