We solved the mystery of Dev Patel's Golden Globes socks – and it makes SO much sense

Dev Patel appeared at the 2017 Golden Globes as a nominee for his excellent work in Lion (in Australian cinemas January 19).

While there, his talent was temporarily overshadowed by three things:

1. The presence of his adorable 8-year-old Lion co-star Sunny Pawar.
Image: Getty

2. The realisation that Dev Patel, the scrawny kid from Slumdog Millionaire and Skins, is now a 26-year-old MAN.
Images: Getty

3. His snail socks.

Image: Getty

So, of course, I tweeted about all three things. But mainly the socks.

My feed blew up with retweets from drooling fans who couldn't get enough of those fancy snail socks. 

"DADDY."

"I'm dead."

"why is he like this i love him"

"He is the man of my DREAMS"

The socks seemed to be the icing on top of Dev Patel's perfection.

Racked even wrote a whole article off the tweet, praising the snails for being "playful yet maintain[ing] a sense of dignity":

But among the thousands of heart eyes for Dev's footwear, a few people questioned if the little guys adorning Dev's famous feet were truly snails.

Could they not, in fact, be… lions? As in, lions for, you know, his movie LION?

OH.

Yes, once you say "lions," they definitely start to look less like snails and more like scrunched up little lions. (See how the brown of the snail body could actually be the mane of a lion?)

The unverified account of director and screenwriter Vineet Dewan even claimed to have a direct line to Dev himself, tweeting, "Dev Patel would like you to know they're actually Lion socks!"

OK, so they definitely appeared to be lions now. But I needed evidence.

Racked wasn't able to find the designer. And a Google search for lion socks turned up nothing worthy of Dev's hallowed toes.

Famed animal pattern sock designer Jimmy Lion doesn't feature any lion (or snail) socks on their website. But I emailed them to see if they could have done a custom design just for Dev.

"We [would] have been thrilled if Dev Patel wore our socks, but unfortunately it didn’t happen - not yet ;)," Jimmy Lion's very nice PR manager replied.

I contacted reps for Lion to see if Dev could clear the air himself. But as he is very busy and important, he hasn't yet found the time to discuss his socks with me.

I took my lunch break defeated.

"The socks are nowhere to be found!" I moaned to my boyfriend as we waited in line for Vietnamese. "You can stop searching right now because I've already done it all, and they're not there!"

Much to my annoyance and eternal gratitude, approximately three seconds later, he had found a photo of the socks on Pinterest that linked back to their product page:

They are lions!

They are from TopMan UK!

They are on sale for AUD $1.65!

They are also seemingly no longer available.

Dev Patel's socks are dead. Long live Dev Patel's socks!