Now that summer’s come, the dreadful heat is on its way. Women can wear skirts or dresses and hopefully be cooler that way. But men have been stuck in traditional suits — until now. Some stores are pushing a new style: the short suit.
This suit looks like a typical business suit from the waist up with a shirt, tie and jacket. But the pants are, well, a lot shorter, ending at or just above the knee.
According to Business Insider, this style might be influenced by Pharrell Williams’ tuxedo shorts at the Academy Awards this year. And it seems to work for Pharrell.
Jon Patrick, creative director at J.Hilburn, told BusinessWeek the short suit is “definitely having a moment, particularly with younger guys.”
One of J. Crew’s short suits is described as “a perfect suiting choice for steamy summer days at the office,” while another is compared to “a great pair of jeans.” While they might be cooler (temperature reference only), these shorts can’t be that similar to jeans because they are (1) shorts and (2) not denim.
These short suits from J. Crew run around $400, though their traditional suits are essentially the same price. Yet another case of “let’s put less fabric into this product and still charge people the same price.”
Topman sells their suits’ shorter counterparts for $390, while Reiss sells theirs (note, it’s just the shorts) for the affordable sum of $130.
But Barneys New York’s short suit takes the cake with a sport coat on sale for $859 (previously $1425) and shorts. That price might be enough to drive daring fashion forwards away, but if it’s not, the style will. The sleeves and hem of the sport coat are trimmed with chiffon, and the shorts look way too much like culottes.
Even though you might beat the summer heat with this short suit, you probably won’t beat the heat from your friends.
