The Swim Trunks You'll Want to Wear Every Day of Your Getaway
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I remember the moment I was Ready To Start Showing My Thighs On The Beach. It was 2006, I was 17 years old, and Daniel Craig's James Bond was emerging from the ocean to spy on a woman whose husband was bad at dressing himself and worse at poker. It's an iconic scene in Casino Royale we all remember, less because of Alex Dimitrios's lonely waistcoat and more because Bond's beach scene featured the shortest swimwear I ever did see (that wasn't a full-on banana hammock). At the time, the only swimsuit I owned was a pair of white board shorts with some sort of neon green floral treatment I got at Abercrombie & Fitch. A fine fit for the era, and the polar opposite of Bond's bulgy briefs. I wasn't quite ready for the latter, but I knew I was done with the former.
Since then, on the thigh scale, men's swimwear has only trended upward, and I've been sitting in the safe zone of a 5-inch trunk since the weekend my board shorts hit the bottom of a dumpster. So you can imagine my excitement when I got my hands on Onia's Charles trunks ahead of a spring getaway south of the border. They're in my inseam sweet spot. They're slim enough around your legs to avoid a boxy silhouette in those poolside 'grams. And they hang loose enough that you can move about without giving the whole beach an anatomy lesson.
That floral print looks great with a tan, too.
These aren't your Boardwalk Beach Superstore™ swim trunks.
They're 100% nylon, so they feel more like athletic shorts than your average bathing suit does. Imagine if the under-layer you put on before skiing wasn't so damn tight. Imagine it fell nicely, but had a tailored enough silhouette that its straight lines were still slimming. Imagine that skin-tight, climate-controlled garment went and took a vacation of its own, let loose a little, shot some tequila and folded up its extra hotel room key in a sandy receipt. That's what you've got here-equipped with some non-invasive mesh interior lining. (Are you still wearing underwear with your bathing suit? Come on.)
You can wear them every day of your vacation.
Any time I've packed for a trip, it's been within 12 hours of leaving for it. And so I'm no stranger to being stuck on a warm-weather getaway with but one swimwear option and an over-large assortment of T-shirts that wind up unworn. On my last trip, I grew up and brought three, and even though I deployed a healthy rotation of all of them, the Onias were the ones I stared at longingly as I left my room for the beach when I wasn't wearing them. Not only are they the most stylish trunks I own, but the lightweight fabric allows them to dry super fast. Rinse them in cold water and they're good to go for day two, and three, and four, and seven.
They've got pockets for all your shit.
You might think there's no good reason to have pockets in a swimsuit. But I'd urge you to consider the swimsuit as something more than what you wear for cannonballs and peeing in the ocean. The best swimsuits-including this one-work beyond the beach. Sure, you can stuff all your belongings into a beach bag, only to lose your Juul beneath all the towels, turkey sandwiches, and cans of spray-on sunscreen. But why do that when you can zip your wallet and cash securely behind your right asscheek, and keep your phone handy for When The Good Light Hits in a just-deep-enough side pocket. Save the beach bag real estate for your books, your sunglasses case, and the plain T-shirt or polo you'll wear with these trunks to a no-shower happy hour.
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