Call it the Great Shorts Divide: For the past few summers, men’s shorts have somehow been getting both shorter and longer. On one end, there’s the unmissable thigh-baring hemlines favored by Paul Mescal, Pharrell, and truly too many other famous guys to list here. On the other side, you have the slouchier, below-the-knee joints as seen on Justin Bieber, Lemaire’s runways, and the hippest dudes on the Lower East Side. Now, as temperatures crank up, the perennial menswear question returns: What’s shaping up to be the signature shorts length for summer 2026?
“It’s anything goes this summer,” says Nick Wooster, the menswear power player with a weapons-grade shorts collection. That said, he believes a sweet-spot length—neither too short nor too long—is the safest bet for most guys. “Right around the knee is an easy place. It’s flattering on everyone. A seven- to nine-inch inseam is probably a length that most anyone could get on board with.”
GQ contributor and fashion writer Jake Woolf echoes this advice—lately, he’s noticed himself gravitating toward a wider, longer silhouette. “Having some volume just makes sense in the months when you want max airflow,” he says. It’s been a welcome shift, especially when compared to the slimmer cuts that long dominated the market. “It felt like wearing the top half of a skinny chino,” Woolf adds. “A longer and looser short feels more comfortable. I like having a little more coverage, especially if you’re going to be sitting down at any point during the day.” Anyone who has sat down in a pair of Patagonia Baggies has experienced the quiet indignity of accidentally revealing too much thigh.
Inseam length has long dominated men’s shorts conversations—lest we forget summer 2020 and the fervor over five-inch shorts—but more recently, I’ve been hearing far more about volume and structure. Woolf cites that photo of Giorgio Armani on the phone as “the Bible” for shorts right now. And then there’s the ongoing John F. Kennedy Jr. cosplay, as sparked by Love Story. “Last summer, short shorts were everywhere. Now, a lot of men are like, ‘Oh, but JFK Jr. wore baggier shorts. Let’s ditch the short short,’” says menswear creator Will Phillips. “It’s just what’s popping right now.”
Of course, there will always be the extremes. Some guys prefer the ultra-trendy, downtown look of giant, capri-like shorts with white socks and black leather shoes. (That silhouette actually feels very aughts-era Pharrell—or as Woolf put it, “looking like they’re from a music video on TRL in 2001.”) You’ll still see supremely short shorts on Mescals of the world in the coming months. But a more balanced short feels poised to define this summer.
If recent menswear trends have been defined by exaggerated proportions—big pants, little loafers—there now seems to be a growing appetite for something a little more classic. Still, despite the general consensus of the mid-length short, almost everyone I spoke to mentioned the value in having multiple cuts and lengths in rotation. An afternoon coffee meeting calls for a different short than walking to the gym or cannonballing into a river on a weekend escape. But when it comes to day-to-day dressing, Wooster puts it best: “In the city and polite society, you kind of want your shorts hovering right at the knee.”