“What’s the Point of Shorts If They’re Not Short?” Celebrating the Men’s Short-Shorts Revival

The outspoken designer Tom Ford famously said that men “should never wear shorts in the city.” Writer and cultural critic Fran Lebowitz called them “repulsive.” A lot of detractors find men in shorts to look childish or plain silly. I respect Tom and Fran, but opinions can actually be wrong. Shorts are a necessary and practical part of any man’s warm weather wardrobe—but the hemline has to be just right. Gentlemen, take note: We’re talking about the 5-inch seam short.

The real arrival of men’s short shorts in corduroy, velvet, cutoff denim, and even leather arrived in the ’70s, and the trend continued into the ’80s with shorts getting shorter and more popular than ever. I can recall a great image of Paul Newman and Robert Redford playing ping-pong while on set shooting Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—both showing some leg. Mick Jagger was often seen in perfectly frayed denim cutoffs, and an image of a young John F. Kennedy, Jr., with a boombox under his arm, sporting white cotton shorts has been used on countless mood boards. In the ’90s Michael Jordan began wearing his shorts longer on the basketball court, making roomier knee-length shorts a broad, long-standing trend, but now, we see a return to a more tailored and thigh-baring look on the runway from brands like Prada, Martine Rose, and Christopher Shannon.

Josh Peskowitz, the owner of men’s wear store Magasin, has been championing the shorter shorts look for quite some time, even though he doesn’t personally subscribe. “While I’m personally not a shorts wearer, I do think they are very appropriate for the incoming summer,” he says. “I think this look is more flattering on most men,” he says. I tend to agree with his outlook, “Once you’re grown,” he says, “your shorts should never be below the knee.”

The rise of athletic apparel has also encouraged men to experiment with a shorter hemline. A long inseam will hold you back on the treadmill—and in life. Whether walking the streets of Soho in the brutal August heat or lounging poolside in Mustique, men everywhere are daring to wear a shorter short.

Regular guys outside the fashion sphere have seemed to adapt too; even a simple chino short is cut a little higher and slimmer these days. The choices of materials and styles available are endless: Embroidered cotton jersey, piped logo-print silk-twill, mesh, satin, seersucker, cotton-terry. From the wild and loud to the mature and pleated, there is indeed a short short for everyone.

In the Academy Award-winning film Call Me By Your Name, directed by Luca Guadagnino, costume designer Giulia Piersanti dressed male co-stars Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet in clothes true to the early 1980s time period. The film's wardrobe garnered a lot of chatter, much of it focused on the costars' fitted, well above the knee shorts. Here’s the thing: The appeal of shorts in the summertime is comfort—not just physical comfort, but also the comfort of nostalgia. Shorts are about those summer days that seemed like they could never end, a time when responsibilities were non-existent. If a garment takes us back to a better time, why not wear it?

Grailed’s brand director Lawrence Schlossman explains his attraction to the 5-inch inseam thus, “For me, it's a combination of utility, nostalgia, and straight-up aesthetics. They're more comfortable from a movement standpoint, [and] remind me of a younger, simpler time when I was in college and wore this kind of stuff basically year-round.”

Fashion photographer Juergen Teller has declared his devotion to the succinct inseam even more directly, “What’s the point of shorts if they’re not short?”

Teller speaks the truth. It’s the fundamental reason that personally, I am loyal to the time-honored Patagonia 5-inch Baggie, its design virtually unchanged since 1982. Classics don’t happen by accident. It is the well-priced stylish short that is not only the most comfortable but also the most versatile. It comes in a wide array of colors and playful prints. You can wear a pair to a weekend lunch, on a hike, or to the beach.

And with that, the era of calf-grazing cargo shorts and baggy boardshorts is over. Where there once was darkness, now there is light, sunlight beaming down on all of us—thighs and all.