Paul Mescal Is a ‘Big Advocate for Men Wearing Shorter Shorts’

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Perhaps as inevitable as death and taxes, there are a few sartorial certainties we’ve come to rely on in the world of contemporary celebrity menswear: Jeremy Strong wearing the color brown. Justin Bieber wearing humongous pants. Paul Mescal wearing short shorts.

This week, Mescal fulfilled his end of the prophecy at the Gucci menswear show during Milan Fashion Week, where the soon-to-be Gladiator II star sported a pair of Gucci striped cotton shorts featuring an ruched elastic waistband (“a cute pair of shorts,” as he described them, but essentially high-fashion boxers) with a loosely buttoned blue Oxford shirt, white crew socks, and the house’s horsebit loafers.

From the show’s front row, the actor told GQ’s Samuel Hine that he’s “a fan of the short inseam,” adding that, “from my eye, it’s to do with proportion; a shorter short with maybe a longer top. I’m a big advocate for men wearing shorter shorts.”

Previously, Mescal has spoken, well, at length about his affinity for such shorts; his arrival as an actor-to-watch in Normal People back in 2020 dovetailed nearly simultaneously with his debut as an avid micro-shorts wearer. He’s been asked about them in more than a few interviews he’s done over the years. “The short shorts that I wear, they're actually not short shorts. They're just football shorts that I've worn for my entire life,” the actor told GQ in 2022. That same month, he mentioned to Dakota Johnson that he’s “got a pretty extensive short shorts wardrobe” in an Interview feature. Last year, he told Harper’s Bazaar that he “[doesn’t] know how I would go about my summer if I didn’t have these [shorts]. I don’t do well in the heat.” When the topic came up again in a joint interview with his All of Us Strangers costar Andrew Scott earlier this year, Mescal implored: “Let’s stop talking about it. Please, for the love of God.”

Meanwhile, the casual pajama-lite configuration the actor wore to the Gucci show hews closely to a concurrent trend happening in womenswear. Last summer, Vogue heralded the TikTok-and-Pinterest-spurned trend of women wearing men’s boxers as shorts as “the epitome of a functional summer staple,” especially when paired with preppy borrowed-from-the-guys staples like oversized button-up shirts and penny loafers. On Paul Mescal, it all reads a bit like he’s just been unduly woken up in the middle of the night at his Princeton dorm room in 1964—particularly in the context of a high-octane Milanese fashion show—but alas, the prophecy still stands.

Originally Appeared on GQ

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