The one thing worth knowing before you buy a pack of cotton socks is that the heel shape matters more than the thickness. A sock with a proper turned heel sits where your heel actually is, so it doesn't bunch under your foot by lunchtime. A tube shaped heel, the kind a lot of cheap multipacks use, looks fine on the cardboard backing and then slides around inside your shoe all day, which is how you end up fidgeting under a desk convinced something's wrong with your shoe when it's the sock.
Size on cotton socks is looser than it should be, because most packs cover a range like four to seven or eight to eleven, and cotton doesn't have much give compared with the wool or nylon blends. If you're at the small end of that range, go a size down if you can, otherwise you get extra fabric pooling at the toe, and that's the bit that turns into a hard seam under your foot after an hour of walking. Watch the top band too. A good one sits flat and comes off your leg without leaving a deep groove, a bad one either slides straight down your ankle by mid morning or grips so hard it leaves a mark you can still see at bedtime. Pure cotton also loses its stretch faster than blends, so a pair that fits nicely in month one can go slack round the ankle by month four, especially after regular hot washes, which cotton needs if you're wearing these daily.
Cotton socks don't really clash with anything in the way an item of clothing might, but they do fight with the wrong shoe. Anything that needs a thin, smooth sock, trainers you're trying to keep sleek, or shoes with very little room, will feel crowded in a thick cotton sock, and you'll notice your foot feels tighter in the shoe than usual. Save the thicker cotton for shoes with a bit more volume, boots, trainers you wear loose.
Stick to plain colours if you want these to last in rotation, because busy patterns show bobbling and thinning at the heel much sooner than a plain grey or navy does, and once one sock in a patterned pair wears through, the other one is useless on its own. White is the hardest to keep looking decent, it greys out after a few washes no matter how carefully you wash it, so if you want something that still looks presentable after a season, mid grey or navy hides wear far better.
Buy a size down from the stated range if you're near the bottom of it, your heel will thank you.
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