T here are always three indications that British summer has started. The first is that offices start pumping out so much air conditioning everyone catches a cold. The second is that people start finding an excuse to drink rose at noon.
And the third is that men start wearing shorts . OK, summer hasn’t started yet , and we have no idea if and when it will ever turn up. But we know that, for a while, all of the above has been the tried and tested seasonal format with little variation.
At least until recently. Because for the last few years, those aforementioned shorts have been causing an increasing amount of alarm as they inch higher and higher up men’s legs. That’s right, I’m talking about short shorts.
And this summer, or whenever warm weather does finally descend on the UK, expect short shorts to be back with a vengeance – and they’ll be shorter than ever before. Paul Mescal is to blame for this . Hailed as “the king of short shorts”, the Normal People heartthrob has been making a case for baring one’s thighs in the balmier months since 2020, when the then-24-year-old was photographed jogging in a pair of white Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) shorts from O’Neills that grazed several inches above his knees.
The look quickly transitioned from PE-chic to the world of high fashion; months later, Mescal was photographed in those same shorts in GQ , though in this instance, they were paired with a £10,000 Hermès fleece. Other celebrities followed suit, wi.