Tired of all of the shorts discourse? Well, we regret to inform you it’s not quite over yet. Plenty has been said as of late about the style on men—how to wear them, when to wear them, and if it’s ever really appropriate to see your male coworkers’ knees—and the deep anxieties they produce in them. Our own Max Berlinger went long on, well, the long shorts of it all, declaring that baggier is, in fact, better. Less has been discussed, however, about the long-lined shorts that have been sweeping women’s silhouettes all summer. And it’s this writer’s belief that they’re the perfect complement to your favorite teeny-tiny tank.
At first glance, these knee-length shorts might feel like a casual, capacious cousin to the flirty capri—or they might give you haunting flashbacks to a particular pair of Limited Too plaid Bermuda shorts that populate elementary-school-era photos from your youth. And yet on the runways, designers from Auralee’s Ryota Iwai to Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten continually return to the knee-length short as the perfect transitional silhouette. Ossou designers Nina Khosla and Talia Shuvalov are drawn to the unexpected tension that the traditionally unsexy style can cause. “A longer short can feel boyish and elegant, covered and sensual, practical and slightly unexpected, all at once,” they say. “It also has enough presence to become a real part of the silhouette, rather than just feeling like a shortened pant. Right now, women are interested in creating character through proportion, rather than simply showing more of the body. It feels more about the attitude of the person wearing it.”
