Foot Fetish Anyone?

This is a hectic time of the year, and laundry has not been very high on my priority list. The situation has not become so very dire that the dirty laundry has become a teeming mass of mold as it did one monsoon in the Mulshi Valley, but it has reached the point where socks, especially tasteful ones, have become a rare luxury. This has led to some interesting anthropological discoveries.

Now, I assume you all know about the (hipster) trend of wearing cute little flat shoes with no socks and skinny jeans. It has been a sort of fall uniform at my (hipster infiltrated) school; I myself have partaken in it. To an extent: I always wear socks.

Well, almost always. Due to the current sock shortage, for a couple of days last week, I wore my cute little flat shoes with no socks (and leggings under a pencil skirt -- see, I can play the hipster game too). I was bewildered by the effects of this minute change: I got so much more attention from the opposite sex than I did with my socks on! There were boys opening doors for me, talking to me, smiling at me; I am not saying that there were so many of them, but certainly there were far more than usual. A couple of days later, my toes were cold and the socks went back on (under black wide-leg pants -- I know, I know, not quite keeping up with the hipsters). I had to open every door I walked through myself: it seems that bare feet are way sexier than socked ones.

So here are my questions:
(a) Am I imagining this phenomenon? I would like to propose a scientific experiment in which we each wear cute little flat shoes without socks for a week and then with socks for the next week, all the while systematically measuring the attention we get from stranger-boys. However, the snow has come (yesterday!) to New York, and I imagine to Glasgow and Tromso as well, so the cute little flat shoes will have to hibernate for the winter and going without socks is ludicrous. Perhaps next spring -- but then the little flat shoes won't be fashionable anymore, omg.
(b) Assuming that I am not imagining this, what is it all about? I have heard about foot fetishes, but I always thought they had to do with the overall shape of the foot. The plane of flesh left exposed by a sock-less flat is just mildly sloping, bony, and in my case, pale. I do not see how this can increase one's desirability. Then again, I also do not see how the numbers and letters my teacher is scratching on the blackboard imply a non-standard shifted ellipse. But apparently, they do.