The Cabot Hosiery Mills sock sale, the annual clearance of Darn Tough seconds that pulls thousands of shoppers into Northfield every fall, will run Saturday, Nov. 21 and Sunday, Nov. 22, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. both days.
The dates were printed on a sheet of paper taped to the side of a company box truck in Northfield’s Labor Day parade on Sept. 7, where Compass photographed it. They have not appeared anywhere else. The company’s own help-center page — the one that exists specifically to answer the question of when the sale is — still lists last year’s dates and hasn’t been touched since October 2025.
If you’re going
When: Sat., Nov. 21 and Sun., Nov. 22, 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Where: Nantanna Mill, 7 Belknap Ave., Northfield
Parking: 470 Main St., within walking distance of the sale
Overflow: Shuttle service from the main mill at 364 Whetstone Dr.
That the dates arrived this way is not a surprise. Pinning down the sock sale has always been part of the sock sale. For years the company posted the dates late and quietly, often on Facebook a week or two out, leaving shoppers to work backward from the hunting calendar. The sale has traditionally lined up with Vermont’s November rifle deer season, and it was originally pitched as a party for “hunter’s widows.”
The draw is the math. Darn Tough socks run about $25 a pair at retail; at the mill, seconds and irregulars have gone for half that or less, and the military-style bundles have historically been the best deal in the building. People have left home at midnight to be first in line, and by opening time cars back up from the factory out to Route 12 through downtown. Compass reported last November that roughly 12,000 people came through the 2019 sale — about twice the population of the town hosting it.
The sale went dark in 2020 and stayed on hiatus for three years before returning in 2023.
The company behind it has kept growing. Cabot Hosiery Mills was founded in 1978 by Marc Cabot, who bought and rebuilt an empty Northfield mill, and his son Ric joined in 1989 before launching the Darn Tough brand in 2004. In February the company promoted Angelica Taylor from chief operations officer to president, the first person outside the Cabot family to hold the title; Ric Cabot stays on as CEO. The company now knits under three labels — Darn Tough Vermont, Wide Open and Cabot & Sons — out of plants in Northfield and Waterbury.
At the Labor Day parade, the company handed out free socks along the route. The more valuable giveaway was taped to the truck.
Thank you. It's barely publicized each year.