PARIS FASHION FLASH—It’s been a long time coming but the Paris fashion police have finally received the circular concerning shorts, now making it acceptable for local men to show their knees on the street.
Tourists have been doing it for some time already, other than the self-censoring “Parisians don’t … so I don’t” crowd.
But this year another “don’t” bites the dust.
“Parisians don’t wear sneakers” fell by the wayside in the 90s.
“Parisians don’t eat hamburgers” got gobbled up in the 2000s.
The demise of “In Paris men don’t wear shorts” is now official.
The signs were already here in the dead of winter as men of all ages set about jogging in tights. Men’s running tights, like shorts, are nothing new on the market but rarely had Parisian men dared such public snugness off of the beach. I figured that if men can run around in tights then it’s no daring leap to wearing shorts as the weather warms, even though warmth has been a frustratingly relative term thus far this year.
And so it has come to pass, weather permitting, with men being spotted wearing knee-length cargo shorts, straight shorts showing a flash of knee, flappy shorts showing a glimpse of thigh and the occasional Bermuda, and I’ve even seen some 70s style jean cut-offs on the cobblestone catwalks of my quarter.
The arrival of shorts will now, one hopes, lead to the demise of that most unfortunate article of recent men’s fashion, the pedal pusher, the capris, le pantacourt, those sockless little-boy knickers that found their way into the closets of men and that for several years now have provided proof that les parisiens take their fashion clues not from other men but from les parisiennes. Adieu, then, as pedal pushers find their rightful place in the garbage bin of recent fashionography.
And a hearty and long overdue bienvenue to shorts on men in Paris.
As to that old favorite, “Why do they all smoke?” that’s still got wind in its sails.
© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut