ARE MEN GOING TO BE HOES OR SAINTS THIS SUMMER?
words by ANOUK WOUDT
Summer has practically already arrived, and yet we still can’t make up our minds on what to wear to keep up with the gruelling heat. For women, summer always seems to come with a long list of fashion dos and don’ts that are honestly far too extensive to even bother with. But for men, summer style is all centred around one main piece: the shorts. Micro-shorts have held down the fort for a while now, making it due time for something else to take its place in the reign. Trends tend to jump through extremes, and as long as almost-pants shorts enter the picture, they might be the perfect spark to brew the latest it-boy item. Which raises the age-old question: Will you be a hoe or a saint this summer?
all images via PINTEREST
Over the years, the phrase ‘hot girl summer’ has become a mindset, extending past the girls to the gays, and now to straight men, question mark? Nonetheless, the hot weather makes us all act a little crazy, and the lack of layers certainly doesn’t stand in the way. Whether you blame it on global warming or the slow death of prudery, hemlines have gotten increasingly shorter, landing us at today’s mini shorts.
This phenomenon peaked last summer, dubbed as ‘thigh guy summer’, with Paul Mescal and his affinity for a micro-short, leading the charge. Pictured on the likes of every celebrity that falls within that same male genre — including Harry Styles and Jacob Elordi — the summer’s heat has really been bringing out its sluttiest soldiers over the past few years.
Extending past streets to the runway, shorter and shorter shorts were seen in the past Spring/ Summer collections, with labels like Prada, Tom Ford, and Saint Laurent also joining the itty bitty short committee, pushing the boundaries of what can be considered a short or just underwear. Claiming its territory in every possible context, the male micro-short has been everywhere lately, and we definitely are not complaining!
After the long reign of the cargo, it’s about damn time, a short short had its return. After all, you may think that something this teeny is a rejection of conservatism, but it is actually way more rooted in tradition than you might think. Short shorts are nothing new to our culture, as hemlines have been shortening since their inception, just about until the ‘90s baggy boom disrupted everything, leaving us in a slow rise back on the track we should have just continued.
But as the trendscape marches forward, fashion continues to move in contradictions. Micro-shorts have had their time in the sunshine, and now the apparition of its direct opposite has hit the streets: the big short (not to be mistaken with the 2008 financial crisis, though it may be equally as indicative of a recession). Dipping even lower than your average jort, this style of shorts is meant to just about graze your calves, levitating a few centimetres above what would be considered a culotte. It’s a complete and utter turnaround, but isn’t that exactly what the human mind always craves— after all, continuity is the thief of excitement.
With men’s SS27 fashion week about to be in our midst, we are excitedly awaiting to see whether the micro-short’s time will be cut as short as its hemline, making way for the rise of the extra-long short, whose appearance still lurks in mini shorts’ tiny shadow.
To all the men reading, we’ve laid out your options, but the choice is entirely yours. Join the sluts, or return to prudishness. Or stay somewhere in the middle: that’s also an option, but it wouldn’t be nearly as chic.
