All summer long, every summer, the conflict rages between lovers and haters of that most ubiquitous element of casual-male warm-weather fashion: cargo shorts. It’s weird how some cheap fabric, lengthy inseams and abundant storage options inspire such polarity.
And it will never be settled, because this argument isn’t between right and wrong or pro and con. This is an argument between “you look dumb” and “I really don’t have any fucks to squander on that, thanks.” Men who love their cargo shorts (and women too, obvs, but this is the Men’s Style Issue) don’t care about style — which is good, because if cargo shorts ever really were “in style,” it was for about two months. In 2006. Among Steve Irwin fans.
No, men who love their cargo shorts love them for these five reasons.
They’re comfortable. There’s the guy who maintains his commitment to an impeccable personal appearance 12 months a year, and if looking good means he’s gotta put on something that’s a little tight or hot or otherwise uncomfortable toward that end, so be it. Then there’s the guy who’s perfectly fine with suiting up for your November wedding, but once the temperature climbs above 70 degrees, all sartorial bets are off. Comfort becomes the only consideration, and baggy, flappy cargo shorts are about as close as you can come to wearing a kilt, which is the world’s most comfortable piece of menswear, but is also, you know, a kilt. Cargo shorts are basically giant boxer shorts you can store your Galaxy Note in. And speaking of which…
The pockets. Oh, the pockets. Ladies, you know how excited you get when you find the perfect summer dress, and discover that it has pockets? Cargo shorts make some guys thrice as delighted — perhaps even more, if said cargo shorts are the kind with little extra pockets on the outside of the gargantuan pockets, for single shells of ammunition or guitar picks or tiny glass vials containing rare insect specimens or whatever. The point is, cargo shorts don’t just have what copywriters might call “a rugged utilitarian vibe,” they’re actually utilitarian. They provide a place for one’s phone, wallet, keys, cigs, vape, pet vole, snack, 800 receipts that will never be needed, and everything else, without making one constantly aware that one is carrying way, way, way too much stuff for a trip to the local brewery tasting room.
They cover a good amount of man-leg. Most man-leg is, uh, not good. Men with good man-legs are free to be the aforementioned human summer fashion Do’s. For men with bristle-haired tarantula shins and knees that look like somebody worked out their aggressions on a pair of fresh rounds of pizza dough, there are cargo shorts.
They’re cheap and easy to find. Old cargo shorts frayed? One 15-minute trip to the mall, discount department depot or outlet mall, and it’s over. What size are they? The same size as my other too-big cargo shorts? Done. Do they match? Do they match what? My wild assortment of black T-shirts? Yes. Yes they do. Guys who wear cargo shorts are concerned with one thing: Are they cargo shorts? OK then, we’re all set. Let’s go drink margaritas on a slow-moving boat.
They’re youthful. Well, perhaps not youthful in the sense that they make you look young. (What cargo shorts make a man wearing cargo shorts look like is, frankly, desperate to appear young, which isn’t the same thing at all.) But youthful in a much better way, particularly if you don’t give a shit how other people think you look: They make you feel young. Wearing cargo shorts is a trip back in time to the first time you wore cargo shorts, when you couldn’t ignore that you were definitely too old to wear board shorts everywhere, yet too young for shorts that made you look like a high-school gym teacher or someone who retired from porn to run a local church youth group. You found cargo shorts, and that was the last time everything was right with the world. They’re the fashion equivalent of never listening to any music released after your junior year in college. And, you know, millions of people do that without being told it’s time to take all of their Gin Blossoms CDs to the Goodwill.
This article appears in Oct 13-20, 2016.
