This Summer Was Made for the Shortest of Shorts
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Earlier this week my boyfriend put on a pair of shorts and I sat down next to him so I could roll up the edges, exposing more of his thigh. When he asked what I was doing I told him Paul Mescal, a short-shorts-for-mens champion and actor, would never question my actions.
He had no idea what I was talking about so I played him a clip that has been circling TikTok for the better part of this past week, where Mescal tells a journalist at the Gucci Menswear Spring 2025 show, “I’m a big advocate for men wearing shorter shorts.” Instead of my boyfriend understanding, he rolled his eyes—but he didn’t unroll his shorts, so I know on some level he gets it.
It wasn’t just Mescal who was campaigning for the look. It was a recurring theme this past men’s week, which concludes this weekend, seen on every other runway. At Gucci, male models wore little brown shorts with netted green polo shirts and horsebit belts. At Wales Bonner tiny swim shorts were styled with striped knit polo tops. At JW Anderson tight bike shorts became the base from which oversized jackets made from yarn hung over torsos like a cocoon. Men’s shorts were getting shorter.
On women’s runways, the shorts have been getting shorter too. But at Miu Miu when bedazzled silk pink briefs made their way down the runway, everyone wondered, Who would ever wear those? The reaction wasn’t quite the same as when Mescal wore his scandalous little shorts. No one questioned i>t. Everyone just demanded more.
Of course there’s the very fact that the world we live in is a world built for men and thus built for them to wear short shorts. They can move around the world differently in them than any woman could, without having to think twice. We can call their short shorts slutty as a joke. But perhaps if everyone starts wearing short shorts they can become a new normal that is all fun, all the time.
It’s sorta already happening—or at least people are starting to establish that this summer will be the summer of the short short. On the internet, girls aren’t just lusting after Mescal in loafers, ankle socks and shorts but declaring his look the look they’ll be replicating with their own wardrobes all summer.
The short shorts look on the men’s runway are also rife with styling inspiration. Showing off a lot of thigh is a classic vixen move but anchoring it with a piece like a polo or a button-down makes it feel less hot and more everyday, with just a little wink of Paul Mescal-inspired seduction.
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