In Praise of Shorter Shorts
I spent quite a bit of time this past weekend searching for good shorts. Then, I spent a lot of the rest of the weekend complaining loudly to several friends about how impossible it is to find good male shorts in this town — i.e., shorts that don’t hang below the knee.
What is going on? It’s as if American retailers are operating under some fatwa that has declared the exposure of male thighs verboten. Should it really be as hard to buy above-the-knee male shorts in this country as it is to buy a mini-skirt in Saudi Arabia?
Today, a sympathetic friend sent me this recent New York Times article, which gives me some hope. But first things first. Before we get to the article’s text, some compelling images:
See those blue shorts? Hot. And things get cooler as you head to the right, toward the jams/surfer shorts end of the spectrum, don’t they? For more proof of this (and more beautiful men) see the helpful slide show that the Times has attached to the article.
And now, Seattle retailers, listen up. The Thursday Styles section has declared the following:
For decades men’s swim trunks, under the name ‘board shorts,’ have inched steadily downward toward a style that would more accurately be described as pants. Finally they are beginning to recede. Thighward. … “The guys have decided to show off the legs again,” said Evelyn Richardson McGee, a manager at Birdwell and a granddaughter of the founder.
Amen!
But since it inevitably takes ages for these kinds of fashion messages to reach Seattle, does anyone know where in this city a guy can currently get some good short shorts? I’m not talking about the teeny-tiny shorts you can find in certain stores on Capitol Hill. I don’t write in praise those (at least not on me). I’m talking cute, plain-front, classic-cut, shorter shorts — like the blue ones above. It’s unbelievable how hard they are to find…
Did you try American Apparel?