A Man's Guide to Shorts - How to Wear Shorts - Wearing Men's Shorts with Style

A Man's Guide To Shorts - How To Wear Shorts - Wearing Men's Shorts With Style A Man's Guide to Wearing Shorts presented by The Art of Manliness and Real Men Real Style. If you haven't already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. By doing that, these videos will come right to you. In addition, if you like this, if you find it useful, I would appreciate it if you would click on the "like" button. Okay, what is the goal of this video? It's to prevent this. Yes, sir, if you don't know how to wear shorts, this could be you. Let's jump into it. First, a bit of history. HISTORY Shorts, their origins are with children and it was part of school prep, basically young men that went to prep schools. That was the only time in their lives they really wore shorts outside of athletic events. And it was simply many reasons for it, one of them, kids were just notorious for tearing holes in their clothing, and this was great. It worked well for young men, but when you became an adult, you did not wear shorts. That's why actually there are quite a few men out there who still feel shorts are not appropriate wear. A funny thing happened though in World War I and World War II, is that shorts were brought into military uniforms and men became accustomed and they enjoyed the benefits of wearing them. After that, Hollywood and fashion designers grabbed a hold of shorts and they brought them to the masses soon afterwards. WHEN TO WEAR SHORTS There really two rules: 1. There should be a good reason, so the temperature should be hot, you should be in the right environment, and your location plays into that as well. So in areas like Bermuda, wearing shorts actually with a blazer jacket, that's pretty common. 2. When you're not conducting business or attending a formal ceremony/event. Now, there are some guys in the fashion industry that I guess can get away with this, but if you are conducting business or you're going to be at a formal event, you need to wear trousers HOW LONG SHOULD SHORTS BE Okay, so we see three different lengths here. I can tell you the guy over on the far left, those are too short in my opinion, but some guys, they're comfortable with that, but I would recommend not going beyond two to three inches above the knee. Once you start going into that realm of shorts, they lose -- at least in North America, it's not something we really want to see. Maybe over in Eastern Europe, you can get away with a little bit shorter shorts, but I would love to hear from you guys in the comments on that. Athletic shorts, they can always be shorter because they serve a function. They allow you to move freely. Running shorts, I remember running cross-country in college and those things were pretty short, but at the end, they need not to restrict movement and as we were competing at a pretty high level, it wasn't an issue. FIT Better close than loose. The thing with shorts is that they only add bulk to the top part of the hips and the top thighs. And you don't want to get the chicken leg look, and that will happen if your shorts are too baggy or they billow out on the sides, so try to avoid pleats on shorts unless you have a large hip area. COLOR It affects the mood and the formality, so the short at the top left hand corner, those are the most common. Those are going to be the easiest to match. Once we start bringing in reds, blues, greens, all of a sudden, it adds a bit of -- it makes them more informal, more fun. You're going to stand out a bit more. At the same time, by sticking with a solid and a traditional style, pretty much any man can be able to pull this off. POCKETS, PATTERNS, STYLES This starts to dictate the formality and the use of the shorts, and how often you can wear them. The shorts over to the right hand side, obviously, they have a lot of pattern. They've got a cargo pocket. These are very casual and they're a bit memorable. So if you wear these to an event, let's say a gathering, you can't really wear them the next day because people are going to remember. You could get away with the shorts we've just shown, especially the more simple. The less flashy the shorts, the more you're going to be able to get out of it in terms of wear. Now, the shorts we have here, bottom left hand corner, they've got zipper cargo pockets, deep pockets. They've got a sport belt. These are made more for hiking and they serve a great purpose for that, but they should remain in the hiking realm. So if you're going to be attending a family get-together, you probably don't want to be wearing these shorts. WHAT TO AVOID All right, let's look at these. They are too long and those strings hanging near the ankles, unnecessary. These shorts, a bit too loud and too short, they're really drawing attention right to your crotch area and that's really not where a gentleman wants all of the eyes in the audience to be focused on. These shorts right here, they look like swim shorts. I know that these are actually -- they're trying to sell them as casual shorts that you can wear around town. I wouldn't recommend it even if you were in the military. WHAT TO WEAR WITH SHORTS Let's talk about shoes. By the way, this image came over from Primer, and primer.com has a great tutorial. If you go back to the article, I link you to it, but they've got a great visual on what to wear with shorts, but there are a lot of options. A lot of the times, guys are just wearing sandals, but sandals should only be worn in very casual situations such as the beach. Otherwise, look to something like driving moccasins, boat shoes, casual penny loafers, and leave the socks or wear hidden socks underneath. You don't really want socks showing, and canvass sneakers or any type of slip-on shoe. SHIRTS TO WEAR WITH SHORTS All right, one of the easiest ones to pull off is the polo shirt. There are a lot of different brands, many colors as you can see, a very easy match, and you don't have to tuck it in, although you can tuck it in and it'll give it quite, I think, a smarter look. You can also wear colored shirts that button up, and here to the left, we've got a classic shirt that we see in the summer, very lightweight material. Over here to the right, we've got a chambray long sleeve. You're wondering, "Okay, how would I wear a long sleeve shirt with shorts?" Well, you would just roll it up and it gives a much more refined look even when untucked. Now, these pictures come from the company, STAG. They're in Austin, Texas and they've got a great website, so go check out stagaustin.com. Finally, top it off with a great pair of classic sunglasses. I'm using a pair of Aviators here from Ray-Ban, but you can go with Wayfarers. You've got to think in the summer you're wearing less, so your accessories mean more. All right. That's it. Thank you for paying attention to this video. Again, if you haven't subscribed, we'd appreciate it and that way, these videos and more like this will come right to you.