I come to you today to celebrate a triumph of good over evil, of light over darkness, of denim over khaki.
Take it away, Wall Street Journal:
Now, jorts—those frumpy jean shorts worn by beer-clutching dads behind the barbecue—have wormed their way into style.
“Jean shorts are definitely making a comeback for summer 2021,” said Janine Chilton-Faust, the global VP of men’s design at Levi’s, which offers jean shorts in a range of fits from slim to baggy.
I have been banging the jorts drum since at least 2014. Back then, we were a nation divided, a country with loyalties split down the middle between jean shorts and their bulkier, more utilitarian khaki cousins: cargo shorts.
Today, however, the balance of sartorial power has shifted decisively to jorts. Data from Google Trends supports the Journal’s qualitative argument: the pandemic accelerated a long-simmering shift from cargo to jorts.
This chart shows the difference between monthly search interest in “jean shorts” and “cargo shorts” since 2004. Brown bars going down indicate more interest in cargo shorts, while upward blue bars show more interest in jean shorts. Look at the data and you can trace the grand narrative of American shorts in the 21st century.
In the early part of the decade, cargo shorts — derived from the then-ubiquitous pants — reigned supreme. “Cargo pants had a big impact on fashion in the 2000s,” Cosmopolitan writes, authoritatively. But things were starting to shift in the 2010s. The bars in the chart grow shorter and closer to the axis, indicating similar amounts of interest. There was a brief cargo shorts resurgence in 2011, which turned out to be the last hurrah for bulky boxy pockets. Relative interest in cargo shorts has been declining ever since.
There was plenty of room to fall. By 2016, when I last visited the topic, jorts were ascendant in the heartland but the coasts were still firmly in the grip of Big Cargo Short.
The map today, however, is very different. Jean shorts dominate in all but five states: Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and New York. This latter one is something of a puzzle: rugged westerners who spend their days lassoing cattle and climbing mountains might have a legitimate need for ample pocket space. But what could Manhattanites’ excuse possibly be?
Holdouts aside, it’s safe to say Jorts have decisively won the battle for Americans’ hearts and thighs. And like many positive trends in American culture, this one appears to be driven disproportionately by women: 2020 saw interest in “womens jean shorts” surpass “mens jean shorts” for the first time.
And that, I think, speaks to the wonderful inclusivity of jorts: whether you’re Daisy Duke, Kevin Smith, or someone in between, there’s a jorts just for you.
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