Amidst a particularly sodden stretch during the ‘Wedding Years’ (a timeframe referenced in my last post about gin and Negronis) – that beautifully hazy run of time when seemingly every summer weekend, and even a scattered several in the other seasons, was set aside for some friend’s nuptials, a stretch that was twice as full for my wife and me given that, despite attending the same college within the same 5 year window, our social circles barely overlapped – I was rather regrettably forced to discard two suits due to how utterly saturated they were after particularly ‘celebratory’, and certainly sweltering, weddings.

Granted, this was at least partially owed to a propensity on my part not only to become gleefully overserved during such occasions, but also to strike a particularly active pose on the dancefloor. To literally ruin a suit, so as to render it unrecoverable, through nothing other than sheer volume of perspiration, is something. To do it again, relatively soon thereafter, is pathos.

Granted, since first my first tipple, I have always been a rather proficient drinker, and certainly during festive occasions. And a rather enthusiastic, and pretty dope if I am honest, at least if my high school yearbook‘s Senior Superlatives are any indication, dancer. But really the suits’ demolition spoke to a larger issue, which for the longest time fed my distaste for summer dressing: temperature control.

I am a sweater. Not obscene. Not a just sitting there indoors, alarmingly high resting heart rate, due for an early grave sweater, mind you. But let’s just say I make any yoga class I take seem like Bikram, much to the chagrin of the (invariably) women nearby. Even in winter, even with a fully bald pate, my overactive internal furnace has me occasionally employing a cotton bandana to my glistening dome at an unenviable rate. So in summer? Forget it.

And I am also an avid dresser. I love clothes. So of course it doesn’t help that dudes are rather limited in terms of viable clothing options for hotter months. Whereas women have skirts, dresses, and various ventilated options to wear both top and bottom that actually look both classy and cool, men are exponentially more limited. Especially at dressier affairs, short of the seersucker or cotton suit (Sidebar: I actually prefer wearing some sort of jacket in such instances, regardless of the heat; it is a virtual certainty that I will sweat through my shirt, thus the jacket actually provides some visual cover for what might otherwise be a less than flattering perspiration situation.), men’s options are few and far between. At least if I want to look like I belong anywhere near the rather stunning better half on my arm, or am, in my case, prepared to drop a few gallons of sweat on your unsuspecting garments.

But even in more casual environs, it is tough to dress comfortably without looking like a bit of a chump. Even more so for me, because up until a few years ago, I hated shorts.

Loathed them. Which isn’t to say I was bothered when other dudes wore them – one long-standing edict I tend to hold dear is “It is always better to overdress than under.” So if and when other guys looked woefully unconcerned, albeit measurably cooler and exponentially more comfortable (and way less sweaty) about showing the world their shins, then far be it from me to complain. Even on the golf course, a sport I gave up with great joy nearly a decade ago, I always opted for pants. Functional to be sure, given the amount of time I spent hacking through the woods looking for wayward tee shots, but also because I felt they looked acres more classy than shorts ever could. Something about shorts that just made me feel like a child. Or like I refused to grow up and be a man when it came to clothes. Or that I was paranoid about my legs looking like toothpicks sticking out of a meatball. I couldn’t quite place it. But I knew I wasn’t on board.

But thanks in part to a well-placed compliment from my wife a handful of years ago regarding what I feared were long-since-lapsed soccer player legs (I played the beautiful game on the varsity level through college, and thankfully have been able to hold onto at least some of that muscle mass), a passing, inspirational glance at pre-eminent flavor icon Pharrell Williams rocking a short-suit tuxedo (more on that in Pt 2), and in the interest of trying to finally find a way to remain cool in the increasingly sweltering summer months, I decided about 4 years ago to give shorts a whirl again.

But to do so, I first had to figure out what it was about shorts that bothered me so much – to identify the problem so as to actually be able to solve it. After pondering it a bit, I found that at the root of all of my misgivings – feeling like a kid when I was wearing them, thinking my short-wearing brethren looked inherently schlubby, or like they had just walked off the 18th green/completed some light yardwork whenever they were wearing them, fearing I might not have enough mass remaining in my lower body to counterbalance the notable heft of my upper half – were due to their proportions.

Not unlike the recent rash of otherwise respectable-looking older gentlemen I have seen all too frequently over the past few years wearing khakis that are far too baggy for their age and build, not to mention 2-3 inches too long, it seems most mass-made shorts are cut and sewn to suit baggier and longer proportions. Which to me, makes little sense. And makes me think of the closing scene in Big, when Tom Hanks’s character goes back to being a kid, leaving his suit and topcoat swimming on him. We can do better.

It was in this aspect that Pharrell’s short suit helped me get over this mental hump, and actually embrace shorts: not just the look, and the ability to dress them up a bit, but by offering an instant proportional solution. If I could take a pair of suit pants, naturally more slim cut than the average pair of manufactured shorts, employ the lifelong knowledge I gained in 7th grade Home Ec, and hem them to a length that didn’t flop down over the knee as if I was about to drop into the half-pipe, then I might have something that would alter the equation entirely.

So with that as a starting point, I began by acquiring an extra set of suit pants for a couple of summer weight suits I already owned: one a cotton chambray and the other a navy linen, to hem down into a couple of short suits. Cleaner, leaner, and shorter than what I’d most likely find in a store. And ready made for even dressy affairs. Fast forward through that process (again, more in that in Pt. 2), and satisfied with the look, I began to search for other more casual options that combined a slightly more tailored look and shorter inseam, but with less manual labor on my end.

Given that what I preferred seemed to be more of a vintage drip, the first place I looked to for options was the past (aside from my first Polo shirt, there was no single garment I remember more proudly rocking than a pair of hand-me-down corduroy Ocean Pacific beach bum shorts), and brands that looked to the past themselves (Post O’alls, a brand that combines utilitarian design, vintage lines, and unique fabrics better, in my opinion, than anyone in the current marketplace).

To that end, Post O’Alls (or Post Overalls, depending on whom you ask), perhaps not surprisingly, happened to market an admittedly oddly named ‘Menpolini’ model that not only combines a trimmer cut and a slightly shorter inseam (hits just above my knee standing at 5’ 11”), but is actually made with vintage fabrics. Leave it to the Japanese to once again take a rather iconic American favorite and execute it in the most stylish, elegant manner possible, elevating an inherently casual item to classier, dressier heights. Due to some particularly successful online hunting last spring and summer, I was able to acquire a rather sizeable quiver of these utterly perfect garments at a fraction of their list retail cost (got them all for less combined than the retail price of a single pair), and those served me well last summer in slightly dressier environs (more on these, and Post O’alls in general, in an upcoming post…no pun intended).

But I was still left without a more casual alternative for what are decreasingly dressy parental summers. And frankly once I thought of the corduroy Op jawns, I really couldn’t think of anything else; there is no overstating how much I used to LOVE corduroy Op shorts (shouts to Mate Gallery, an eminently well-appointed and interestingly merchandised “shop” and favorite personal browsing ground, for being an early visionary in chasing down and stocking these gems).

Right up there with JAMS as the iconic shorts of my 80s childhood, Op owned the clean, basic, single color shorts market in the same way JAMS ruled the wild, printed, multi-colored long-shorts market. I had two pairs as a kid: one pair a deep royal blue which I dutifully paired with an equally iconic Vuarnet t-shirt, and a light tan pair that I remember thinking made me look kind of nude, and thus were worn more sparingly (which was to say, still quite a bit).

I remember there was something about how incongruous it felt to be wearing a material so often associated with fall and winter – corduroy – in the midst of the summer heat, and also that they felt so surfer-y, and thus non-native to my New England environs that they truly felt special. I remember feeling more confident when I wore them. They were one of the first things I remember thinking looked good on me. Due in large part, of course, to how popular that iconic Op logo was, it felt like if you were lucky enough to be wearing them, you were truly nailing summer.

And that feeling hasn’t left. At all. I was lucky enough to track down a handful of pairs on eBay from the end of last summer through the start of this spring, before what appears to be the start of a rise in popularity of late (if recent winning bids are any indication), at eminently reasonable prices. They are broken in, faded, and as stylish as I remember them. And hook up perfectly with Vans Slip-Ons.

Granted, they are definitely SHORTs. Indeed, part of their appeal was this very fact; I knew that even compared to last summer’s gathering obsession (the aforementioned Post O’alls Menpolinis), these were going to be a measure more casual and exhibit a couple inches of thigh that hadn’t seen the light of day since the early days of my high school basketball career (right before high schools finally switched to a more updated, baggier cut of shorts).

But even given that, the 4” inseam of the original mid 80s versions are a bridge too far  for me. Luckily, it seems Op put out another run in the late 80s/early 90s with a slightly squished logo, and a 5” inseam, which cover enough of my thigh to where I feel I can wear them something other than ironically, but are also generally in better overall vintage condition to boot, due to their younger age. Double win.

Granted, I know they’re still not for everyone. As is often the case with items I am either out of left field on a bit (or as I prefer to think of it: ahead of the curve), I expected some of the banter and ballbusting I received from some of my more sartorially conservative buddies while wearing them recently. Overall this propensity toward some combination of the odd and old is a hairshirt I wear with pride; I’d much rather suffer the slings and arrows of wearing what I want/like and thus occasionally shit most dudes won’t be up on for another year or two than be a guy who has to make sure something is ‘safe’ to wear before I buy it.

I’ve never understood the amount of attention many straight guys pay to what other straight guys think about how they dress. Nor the utter lack of self awareness in some straight dude making a derisive comment about what I’m wearing somehow being “gay”, as though catty comments about what another dude is wearing is not…

Either way, at least now I know that when the temperature climbs, I can finally find some relief, while still being happy with how it will all look. And if not in the written word, clearly, then at least from a summer wardrobe perspective I’ve finally, mercifully found a way to keep it short. And I must say, it’s pretty sweet.