By covering up a around the ankle, you’ll be counterbalancing the acres of leg flesh on show. For this you’ll need a loose long-sleeved Oxford shirt, worn-in retro sneakers and a pair of white sports socks. You’ll need to summon the spirit of Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name. Still, even professional sprinters will have to exercise some caution and avoid anything remotely snug. Unsurprisingly, the condition of your legs makes a massive difference to how easily you can pull this fabric-swerving style off: slimmer or larger legs will have no place to hide, so short shorts as well as 5 inch inseam shorts are best avoided for those with bottom-half hang-ups. We’re talking about shorts that just hit the upper middle thigh, not anything that could be mistaken for your groin region. Before you baulk at the prospect of exposing “underbum”, let us first clarify that there’s a difference between short shorts and hotpants. And after a couple of drinks, we’ll admit that we do too. Who loves short shorts? Menswear designers, that’s who. Plump for a crew-neck T-shirt and some pared-back trainers or an open collar polo shirt and some chunky trainers to keep this old-school style feeling fresh. So, pleated shorts are the thinking man’s pick, but assuming you don’t want to look like a 1930s game hunter you’ll need to be wary about how formal the rest of your look is. They don’t just look all debonair either: they’ll actually retain their shape better when you’re sitting too. Like pleated trousers (also trending, FYI), the short version takes the basic premise of flat-fronted designs, but the small, preppy design twist helps you stand out on a beach. What was once peak private schoolboy has become the short du jour for any self-respecting Pitti peacock though. Unless you attended one of those schools with attendance fees equivalent to a Kardashian sponsored post, chances are pleated shorts will be relatively unfamiliar territory. Avoid wearing with shirts, flip flops and sweatbands like the plague, and you’re golden. Rather than look like you’re in fancy dress, make like retro short fanatic Donald Glover and team a pair with an oversized T-shirt and old school skate shoes. That’s where the similarities with those two sporting legends should end, though. Think Bjorn Borg or Paul Gascoigne and look for retro details like side stripes, piped trims or curved hems. That’s because designers have dug deep into the archives to bring back the best short styles from the days when sports kits went easy on fabric and heavy on exposed hamstrings. Getting your pins into a pair of retro sweat shorts no longer requires patiently thumbing through the overstuffed rails of your local vintage store and hoping for the best. If you fall into the latter camp there’s good news. Looking at pictures of tennis and footballing stars from decades gone by will elicit one of two emotions: abject horror or a hankering for the good old days. Think Alexandre Mattiussi, not Top Gear on tour. Think minimalism, to offset the technicality of the shorts. Immaculately clean luxury sneakers will mark you out as card carrying member of club menswear, while an oversized T-shirt shape will demonstrate that you don’t shop for your tees by bulk. Pair these with a breezy streetwear sensibility. The newer, younger model is slimmer and doesn’t have disproportionately large pockets. Gone are the unflattering hem lengths and faux worn-in finishes (which just looked like you’d stuck your shorts in the wrong wash cycle) and in their place come the cargo 2.0. Now though, menswear historians are reappraising this proudly pocketed style. Cargo shorts became the lazy man’s summer legwear of choice and most often came paired with an offensively bad (or just plain offensive) slogan T-shirt and some scruffy shoes that had seen far better days. Unfortunately, under their reign, the people suffered. In the not so distant past, cargo shorts were the de facto king of summer leg-barers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |