“Tony” is the male protagonist of Leonard Bernstein’s Broadway hit “West Side Story”, that tells a modern version of Shakespeare’s tragic love story Romeo and Juliet. Set in the Upper West Side of New York in the 1950s, the musical explores the rivalry between two teenage street gangs: the Puerto Rican Sharks and the Jets, a white working-class group. Tony, one of the Jets, falls in love with Maria, the sister of the leader of the Sharks and the drama unfolds as they try to share their forbidden love amidst a turf war fought between the two rival groups.

In the staggered knit/purl pattern of these socks zigzagging from side to side you can see Tony being torn between his love and his loyalty.

The pattern of the socks are just low-key enough to be wearable for all the men in your life, and just interesting enough to save the knitter from being bored to tears while making them.