Sabato De Sarno’s Spring/Summer 2024 Gucci debut is one of those directional collections that set the tone for a new kind of look in fashion. His predecessor Alessandro Michele’s fashion magpie layers were enormously influential, so whatever he showed was bound to be a shock to the system. And I’ll admit that when the first model stepped out on the runway in a peak lapel coat worn over a simple white tank top and tiny black shorts, my first reaction was “not short shorts!” I’ve loved the mid-length and Bermuda styles that have been trending for the past few years, replacing the ultra low-rise five-pocket denim shorts that had been adored by seemingly every avatar of festival style from Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse to Rihanna and Beyoncé since the mid 2000s. I breathed a sigh of relief the day I sent my own Rag & Bone pair with inseams so short the pockets stuck out the bottom off to The RealReal.
But as one pair of short shorts after another in luxe fabrications like oxblood calf bonded leather and magnetic green wool paraded down the Gucci runway with coordinating jackets and coats, my eyes started to adjust, and I had to admit that these were not the denim cutoffs worn with crop tops for maximum skin exposure that I remembered. Indeed, smartly tailored styles with high waists turned up everywhere in the Spring/Summer 2024 collections. Khaite paired black satin shorts with double-faced silk gazar poet blouses, while Michael Kors Collection showed lace shorts with a cashmere turtleneck and LaQuan Smith teamed paper bag-waist embossed croc shorts with a satin button-down.
Stella McCartney’s elevated ensembles included cheeky gold brocade shorts and crystal-embellished cumberbunds and Prince of Wales check coats. New Tom Ford designer Peter Hawkings showed a textural series of short suits in croc-embossed lurex, cotton velvet, and lustrous cotton blend duchesse. And Prada presented 20 different pairs of belted wool shorts styled with wool blazers, printed poplin shirts, or cashmere polos neatly tucked in.
Though retailers are largely calling the short shorts you’ll find in stores this summer mini shorts, they’re a close analogue of both the tap shorts worn by Old Hollywood stars from the 1940s to 1950s and a short lived trend called hot pants from 1971. First worn by Ginger Rogers and studio dancers in movie musicals, tap shorts were adopted by pin-up girls-turned-movie stars like Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable who often paired them with heels for their promotional photos.
At the Dior Pre-fall 2024 show held in New York in April, Maria Grazia Chiuri sent out chic little three-piece short suits in a range of English tailoring fabrics inspired by the more androgynous look of actress and singer Marlene Dietrich’s signature shorts-and-tails; one model even carried a top hat.
Women’s Wear Daily publisher John Fairchild coined the phrase “hot pants”—the industry newspaper styled it HotPants—for an October 1970 article trumpeting a fresh crop of dressy shorts from designers including Giorgio di Sant’ Angelo and Betsey Johnson worn with boots or platform sandals. Jane Birkin wore hot pants soon after, as did Yves Saint Laurent’s muses Loulou de la Falaise and Marisa Berenson at the designer’s pivotal Spring/Summer 1971 haute couture Scandal show, and soon the look was, for a brief time, everywhere.
“What are the designers going to pick when they revive the 1970s? Shorts, maybe,” New York Times fashion critic Bernadine Morris griped in a January 1971 column. “In the old days they never left the beach or the backyard, except in Busby Berkeley musicals, when they tapped. Now they’re all dressed up with tailored jackets or coats, and they’re ready to go out to lunch or dinner. That’s progress for you. Maybe the restaurateurs in New York will provide the protest.”
Morris was clutching her pearls in the era portrayed in Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. The Swans when New York’s best restaurants still maintained arcane dress codes. Nan Kempner had famously been denied entry to La Côte Basque for wearing a Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking—women were expected to wear dresses or skirts—and removed her pants to get into compliance. She needn’t have worried: The bohemian look soon swept into fashion displacing hot pants for hippie deluxe bell bottoms as the era’s defining look. But I can’t imagine she’d be too pleased to see that 50 some years later, Dr. Barbara Sturm hosted a VIP dinner at the city’s current toughest reservation, Torrisi, wearing a pair of the Khaite mini shorts in leather.
Hot pants followed the 1960s miniskirt. Fashion trends being cyclical, it makes a certain degree of sense that today’s mini shorts would land after the early 2020s defining silhouette, the Miu Miu skirt, with its waistline cut below the hipbone and hemline above the thigh. “It’s definitely the update to the micro mini and a lot easier to wear,” says Katie Rowland, buying director of women’s wear at Mytheresa. “You can bend over.” The e-retailer has already sold out of several Gucci, Khaite, and Tom Ford styles.
Kristen Stewart, something of a fashion oracle, modeled a custom Chanel mini short tuxedo at the Oscars back in 2022. “She had worn a pair in Charlie’s Angels and I was like, ‘Girl, you look great in those,’” Stewart’s stylist Tara Swennen recalls. Stewart made mini shorts and heels a fixture of her press tour uniform while promoting her new film, Love Lies Bleeding, this spring.
For anyone feeling a bit shy about baring all, Swennen has a couple of styling tips. She suggests wearing mini shorts over tights or sheer nude hosiery to “contour the leg,” as Stewart did with her Brunello Cucinelli cashmere high-waisted briefs for an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Singer Lisa also recently donned sheer black thigh-highs with Louis Vuitton leather mini shorts. “And just remember that you can always layer something longer around them like a jacket or duster so then you really only see the front of the leg,” Swennen says, describing a look that sounds almost exactly the way I first encountered this season’s mini shorts at Gucci.
Read GRAZIA USA’s Summer Issue featuring cover star Sienna Miller:
