I’m a Baggy-Shorts Convert
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I cannot handle theseheat waveswith temperatures regularly nearing 100 degrees in New York City. And I say this as someone who grew up in India through countless blazing Delhi and Bombaysummers. I think this is partly because one expects those summers — you wear long-sleeved cotton kurtas to shield your skin from the sun, and you and those around you accept that you will be sweaty all day and your back will be wet to the touch and your face will glisten and even drip.
But during the recent heat waves in New York, that’s not what is happening — instead, many are wearing the tiniest of shorts with tops that look like bikinis and flimsy sundresses with no straps, and everyone looks so comfortable and cool. And I truly love that for them, and everyone of any age should wear whatever they feel happy in, but I am not wearing any of the above. I want to be comfortable and at ease as I run from working at home to lunch with friends to camp pickup to the playground to a local bar for a spritz. I don’t want shorts that ride up my thighs, and I don’t want my stomach visible and I don’t want straps dropping seductively off my shoulders while I’m picking up my children and chitchatting with their camp instructors.
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Fortunately, while scrolling mindlessly on my phone late at night, I found these shorts atTargetand they sang their siren song to me. I ordered them a size bigger than my usual because I like my clothes roomy and I am committed to wearing my pants low and closer to my hips than my rib cage. I have worn them nearly every day since they arrived — I have worn them for all the things I mentioned and to my nephew’s fifth-grade graduation and comfortably biked all around Brooklyn in them (biking is another way I’m trying to embrace the heat this summer). Once I started wearing them, I noticed a lot of people wearing similar shorts. Turns out long baggy shorts had been around me all along. In fact,the Strategist even wrote about its favorite Bermuda jorts, but you should know that mine cost $22.
The shorts do absolutely fine in the washer and dryer and have not shrunk noticeably. I wear them with sneakers, Birkenstocks, and even thoseSorel sandals I raved abouta few years ago and still wear all summer. That’s my “formal look” in this heat.
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