Men's thighs have been hidden under cargo shorts for too long. Lately they've been making their presence known, and fashion retailers have noticed.
Rising hemlines in men's shorts isn't really a new trend. The Wall Street Journal and others covered it relentlessly last year. What is new is the endless variety of shorter lengths men have to choose from, making it easier than ever to show as much or as little thigh as you prefer.
Getty/Tristan Fewings
A model wearing shorter shorts during Paris Fashion Week Men's 2015.
J. Crew offers shorts in an array of lengths, from seven to nine inches. Bonobos sells five-inch shorts.
Chubbies, a company that aims to bring short-shorts to the masses, also sells five-and-half-inch shorts. In fact, sales at the e-commerce start-up are so good that it opened a brick-and-mortar store in San Francisco. The brand has over 1 million fans on Facebook, mostly from college campuses, where Chubbies spreads the short-shorts message to frat brothers. The company expected to sell more than $1 million worth of short-shorts on "Fourth of Julyber" - the summer equivalent to Cyber Monday.
Getty/Tony Duffy
Guys didn't mind running in short-shorts in the 1980s. What changed?
Many men may opt for the just-above-the-knee cut that the nine-inch shorts provide, which is probably the most popular short inseam length available today, while others adopt more revealing styles to show off their "thighceps."
The rise of shorter shorts is something a lot of men will benefit from. It's firmly rooted in the prevailing trends of retro sport-inspired fashion and men being braver about showing a little bit of skin.
If you're a guy looking to get into the shorter shorts game, you don't have to dive right into Chubbies - a five-inch hemline is a bit short, even for fashion forward gents. We recommend testing the waters with a pair of seven- or eight-inch shorts - eight if you're tall, seven if you're on the short side. Seven-inch hemlines look great on pretty much everyone.
Oh, and make sure to choose a slim cut.