Is it so much to ask that I can buy a pair of shorts that don’t fall three inches below the knee? I went shopping for shorts today at two different stores. I was really kind of looking forward to it, since over the last 18 months I’ve lost over 100 pounds and think that I might actually look good in shorts now. But no, the designers and manufacturers of shorts have conspired to make me and every man look completely ridiculous by making nothing but “shorts” that hit me mid-calf or lower!
What’s the problem, you say? Just buy some long shorts and hem them! No, no, my simple friends, this is not to be because along with making the shorts ultra long, the debbil manufacturers and designers have put pockets to within an inch of the bottom hem. Hemming a pocket? Not so much.
“Shorts” that are only a few inches shorter than regular pants are not shorts. They are floods. Or highwaters. Nerds wear them. The bottoms of shorts should hit somewhere on the thigh. At the lowest, even with the middle of the kneecap. No lower! Personally I blame professional basketball players. Yes, those 70s shorts that hits an inch below the butt crack, with the white piping around the bottom hem and up the side seam, were truly heinous. But going too long in the other direction looks just as bad if not worse.
Give me some shorts that let me show off my newly shapely legs, you bastards!
I seem to have the opposite problem (I shall note that I’m a woman here)-- it’s nearly impossible to find shorts that don’t show my ass crack when I bend over.
The world does not want to see my legs, but it’s a long summer going outside in pants in the blazing heat.
Perhaps you’re shopping in too upscale a venue. I was at Kresge’s the other day, and while they do seem to have a fair number of those not-so-shorts on display, they also have a decent assortment of more conventional styles. I guess the “wacky shorts” look is in vogue this year. Kids these days… still, I will maintain that the horrible microscopic jogging shorts of the 70’s were even more soul-destroyingly awful. For the vast majority of shorts-wearing people, the less we see of that particular area the better.
I hate the shorts that come down to mid-calf as well, but don’t have a whole lot of difficulty finding shorts of a more reasonable length (just above knees). The main issue is that it can be difficult to find them in my waist size (~29 inches). For people my age, the style is to have them longer, but for guys past their 20s and 30s it seems that shorts haven’t gotten too absurdly long yet. So I just buy those. Heck, I’m only two years short of being in style…
Can someone start a company that makes shorts that actually look good and are not too long/short?
Seriously, here is a guy looking for shorts, and all he finds are ones that are too long. I am a girl, and the only shorts I can find are too short. I am not about to buy from the “petite” department, because those are the kind of short my grandmother wears.
I guess I could wear guy shorts, but I could buy girl capris for the same length.
When I grow up, I will go to college and major in fashion design and make clothes that people can actually wear. I’ll need a clever name for my company, though. It should be some sort of Doper in-joke, and all Dopers will get a big discount for being able to explain it. (the obvious one, is, of course, “Hi, Opal!” which could be a clothing company. I mean, “Old Navy”? “Wet Seal”? “Hi, Opal!” fits right in.)
Well, in that case you may have to go in the other direction, and resign yourself to shelling out a little more green at some other chain. I must say that I sympathize completely; don’t even get me started on the hassle of finding shirts in “Large Tall” size. Egad, I need to start a thread on this subject…
That highlights what I see as the problem here. Women are forced into buying stuff which cover practically nothing, highlighting their status as sex objects, while men can’t find shorts that don’t go past their knees. It would be nice to have clothing manufacturers that make clothing for men that doesn’t look like tents (western wear manufacturers are an exception, it appears) and clothing for women that leaves something to the imagination.
Thankfully, it looks like there is some consumer pressure on the part of teenage girls to make more modest styles, and now we have consumer pressure from the male end to make shorts which don’t end a few inches above the ankle without having to pay premium prices. Good on both, I say.