Three designs by students in Virginia Tech’s Department of Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management are finalists to become the latest in Hokie fashion, and the Virginia Tech community has a chance to help decide the winner. 

Students, faculty, alumni, and friends are encouraged to cast their vote for which of the three sock designs pictured above they would most like to wear. Supporters who make gifts to Virginia Tech on Giving Tuesday — the nationwide charitable giving event held on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving — will receive a pair of the winning socks as a show of thanks for their generosity.

Jiale Man, Jordan Jenson, and Kate Melson, who each created one of the three designs, are seniors majoring in fashion merchandising and design. They developed their ideas with help from Associate Professor Jung Eun Lee after learning design techniques in her Fashion Presentation Techniques course the previous semester. 

“These students did a great job; this is an amazing experience for them to get some feedback on their designs from other people,” said Lee. “It will be wonderful for the chosen designer to see their design go into real production.”

Each one of the three designs is meant to evoke a different aspect of life at Virginia Tech. Jordan Jenson’s design, called “Hokie Sewn,” nods to the Collegiate Gothic look of Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus with its Hokie Stone motif.

“I wanted something that would represent Virginia Tech,” Jenson said, “and when I think of Virginia Tech, I think of Hokie Stone.”

Jiale Man’s design, titled “Sunrise on the Drillfield,” features a plaid pattern in the university’s iconic Chicago maroon, burnt orange, and white.

“I wanted to use the school colors to invoke a sense of warmth and passion and to transmit the Hokie Spirit and a sense of pride in Virginia Tech,” Man said. “I like plaid because it works in a wide variety of settings, so you can wear them in lots of different places.”

The third design, Kate Melson’s “Hokie Steps,” features alternating bands of burnt orange and white with rings of orange HokieBird footprints.

“I wanted to recreate the HokieBird’s path as it makes its way around campus,” Melson said. “I also wanted to incorporate all of the Virginia Tech colors in a way that would be easy to recognize.

Both Giving Tuesday and National Sock Day fall in the first week of December, and for the second year in a row Virginia Tech will be celebrating them together by rewarding supporters with Hokie socks. Last year, more than 2,000 pairs of socks were sent out to the generous Hokies who gave to Virginia Tech on Giving Tuesday 2019.


Anyone wishing to cast their vote for their favorite design can do so online. Voting is open now and ends on Sept. 25. Ten people who vote for any design will be randomly selected to receive a free pair of the winning socks.

— Written by Brian Snell

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