We are in 2025 and millions of men worldwide continue to deny one thing: shorts

In a couple of months I have a wedding. And although I still don’t know what I will wear exactly (suit, I don’t suit), I am clear: I will not go in shorts. Nor will I get them out of the closet for my next working meeting, or for food with former schoolmates, or surely for my next family dinner, just as I did not do any of the 11 years I worked in an office. Well seen, in my day to day there are few moments for the shorts, let’s not say the Bermuda. And mine is not a unique case.

The relationship between shorts and men It is not simple And (almost) at the doors of summer maybe it is a good time to ask the big question: why?

“Only for tennis or beach”. A few years ago the reporter Jefferson Hack, from the magazine Anotherhe asked the designer and filmmaker Tom Ford to give him Some lessons simple to be “a modern gentleman.” He quoted five and one reserved it specifically to talk about the garment that, in his opinion, any man must handle cautiously: shorts. “A man should never use them in the city. Chanclas and shorts are never appropriate in the city. They should only be used on the tennis or beach,” He collected Hack in his Pentalog.

Is it the only one who thinks like that? No. For more prestige that Ford has won in the fashion world, his opinions are just that: opinions. However, it is not alone in his posture on the scarce male pants. In ABC of Men´s Fashion The deceased Hardy Amiesanother heavyweight in the design world, also pronounced Roundly On the subject: “A man should never wear shorts, except when he is on the beach or during a walk.”

The list of designers and professionals of the fashion world who look suspiciously the short man-pavement binomial is wide and encompasses many other names. Nicolas Gabard I recently confessed that you never saw them, the comedian Brian Park He joked in another podcast ensuring that they should be used “only to do sports or aquatic activities” and a quick search on Google reveals a good handful of articles with A similar toneof editors convinced that a man I should never put on shorts to go to work or that garment It has no place in the closet of a gentleman.

“Made me reflect”. The trend is sufficiently pronounced (and curious) so that it has given rise to analysis in media like The country or the magazine GQwhere a few days ago Daniel Varghese signed an article in which he launches a question in the air: “Shirts, why do so many men refuse to take them?” The piece is interesting because, in addition to remembering the opinions of Tom Ford or Gabard, Varghese shares own opinions and some friends. And while they do not deny shortThey do admit that they do not face it with the same approach as the rest of the garments.

“A few weeks ago I extracted from my closet the trunk where I keep my summer clothes. I took almost everything without thinking, but there was a garment that made me reflect: some Patagonia Baggies,” Remember Varghese: “He had begun to assimilate the idea that men should never wear shorts.” After consulting with other colleagues he found that they agreed that they only carry shorts In certain contexts (as in very sunny days), they do not feel comfortable with them or even are childish.

“I would feel ridiculous”. A similar exercise made in 2019 in SMODA Beatriz Serrano, who asked some men what they thought about the possibility of presenting themselves to their bosses with shorts. The answers go in a similar line. “The offices are formal places where some composure must be kept,” I commentedA 33 -year -old journalist. “The clothing standards can be lightened a bit in summer, but the Bermuda are out of the equation in any case, as well as going in a swimsuit or flip flops (…). There are hundreds of light tissues with which to cover the legs and not look like a kid in the courtyard of the school.”

Another man, engineer, about to meet 40, It showed Even more reluctant: “I honestly, I am not comfortable. I would feel ridiculous with the Patorras in the air in my office (…). I am both afraid of seeing me in short pants and seeing the calves of my classmates. “In other cultures, such as the Japanese, it is not usual to meet men in shorts except when they do sports, as you collect The style guide of Inside Tokyo.

Why these misgivings? That is the question that was asked just a year ago Guillermo Arenas in in Icon And his response goes beyond aesthetic, cultural or functional issues: he connects directly with the chronicle of the last centuries and “a mixture of puritanism, clash of classes and chance.” After all, the pants (like any other garment) is fashion, but also history.

The rise of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by the consecration of the pants to the ankles and the short He went to associate with very specific areas, such as school uniforms. The result is an association that is still maintained today. “They are childish,” Recognize Photographer Daniel Arnold to Vogue. “I feel a giant child.” Another factor that indicates Arenas is its contestant capacity and the use that has been given to the garment in recent decades between rock bands (with fallen and cut shorts) or the gay community.

An immovable norm? If something is good for fashion, it is to reinvent and knock up pre -established norms. And with the shorts it could happen exactly that. There are those who have been Wondering openly why a man cannot go to work in shorts And in recent years, prominent names of the world of cinema or fashion have been seen wearing the garment in important quotes. Pedro Pascal did it, for example, during the 2023 Met gala, unleashing a wave of commentsand Paul Mescal has not had objections to pose before the cameras with them.

Maybe it seems a minor issue, but the binomial short-Hombres has already jumped on some occasion beyond the fashion world to enter fully into the social, labor or even legal chronicle. In 2015 the Jaén Penitentiary Center sanctioned a month without employment and salary To an educator who came to work in shorts, in 2019 Several taxi drivers De Vigo decided to dress skirt to get the regulations to allow them to use shorts And in 2017 the Telemark Committee He complained Precisely the same: that is prevented from men to wear short pants. It is fashion. And it is much more than fashion.

Image |Chase Chappell (UNSPLASH), Mohamad Khosravi (Unspash) and Matthew McBrayer (UNSPLASH)

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