INCHING UPWARD: Briefer versions of classic Birdwell Beach Britches are in demand again. Trunks with 14-, 15- and 18-inch outer seams are to at Jeffrey New York, Jack Spade and birdwellbeachbritches.com. More Photos >
NOT long ago Stuart Gayle, the managing director of the Pierce Allen design firm in Manhattan, had a man-to-man talk with his friend Wayman Robertson, an architect, on the latest masculine anxiety — yet another to add to the pile. This time the intervention was about trunks.
Trunk length, to be exact. Mr. Robertson, 35, asked his friend for swimsuit counsel, and Mr. Gayle, 40, laid it on the line. "He liked his board shorts and didn't want to change," he said. "I told him, 'Get over it, college boy.' "
Mr. Gayle spoke with the zeal of the converted. Only two summers before, his wife had given him a pair of Vilebrequin trunks. On a trip to the South of France, they had seen scores of men in the colorful, midthigh cotton trunks, and he realized he was missing the boat. "Once you get out of college, you need to move on."
Fashion watchers have been anticipating the change almost as closely as climatologists monitor sea levels. For decades men's swim trunks, under the name 'board shorts,' have inched steadily downward toward a style that would more accurately be described as pants. Finally they are beginning to recede. Thighward. Even among customers of the California surf line Birdwell Beach Britches, the trim, shorter styles introduced in the 1960's are making a comeback.
"The guys have decided to show off the legs again," said Evelyn Richardson McGee, a manager at Birdwell and a granddaughter of the founder.
It is tempting to label the trend the Vilebrequin Effect, so popular have those brightly patterned French swimsuits become on upscale beaches in the last few summers. Benajamine Parent, the company spokeswoman, said that more than 75 percent of its customers are women, and given that Vilebrequin does not sell women's swimwear, it would seem to be girlfriends, fiancées and wives who are upgrading, if not upbraiding, men's swimwear choices.
"I've bought them for every single boyfriend I've dated," said Jane Griffin, 29, a former hedge fund analyst in Manhattan. Not that it has always been easy to get her beaux to go shorter. "There's been resistance, definitely," she said. "They'll try on the short version, and they'll be like, 'No way.' So then they'll go for the longer ones." Then," she said, "they become addicted."
Even so, this is no vast female conspiracy. "When I see a man over the age of 20 wearing a pair of board shorts, it feels a little 'midlife crisis,' " said Daniel Peres, the editor of Details. "You need to apply the Goldilocks criteria to swim trunks. They can't be too long or too short." Mr. Peres said that when he visits his in-laws in Australia, he is ridiculed mercilessly for his medium-length swim trunks. "There, if you're not wearing long board shorts, you might as well be wearing a Speedo," he said.
Quiksilver surfer shorts may be as long as ever, but even sportswear companies like J. Crew have upped the hemlines on their trunks. And Italian fashion houses, Dolce & Gabbana foremost among them, may put models in brief-issimo styles to spice up their runway shows, but the house is smart enough to offer plenty of well-cut trunks for the American customer.
Parke & Ronen in Manhattan has made its name with the tailored precision of its low-key, retro-60's surf shorts: not too short, not too long, not too baggy, not too tight. "I'm very anti-Speedo," said Ronen Jehezkel, an owner of the company, who studied the intricate art of couture in Rome before moving to New York. "It's too revealing."
As for the Quiksilver style, he said: "I look at them, and I think 'Why?' You're going to have so many years when you'll have to cover those legs up, why do it when you've got something to show?"
An exacting man, Mr. Jehezkel tries to work one day a week in the Parke & Ronen store on Ninth Avenue just to see what suits work on which customers. His basic model, with a four-inch inseam, is best for most men, he said. Or at least most men with a well-used gym membership. Shorter guys might gravitate to the Frankie Avalon-style snap shorts, with a two-inch inseam, while men with thin legs would do better with a longer model, one with an eight-inch inseam.
Which brings us back to Mr. Robertson, the architect, who, it turns out, had good reason for resisting his friend's advice about shorter shorts, and it had nothing to do with clinging to his youth. "I am a guy with skinny legs, so board shorts just look better on me," he said. "Plus, if you think about what's cool with pants right now, it's the flat front, which is what board shorts have. They hang better, whereas your elastic waistband looks like a pleated pant, which is not cool." (Most board shorts skip the elastic waistband, while traditional swim trunks usually have one.)
Todd Snyder, the vice president for men's wear at J. Crew, confirmed the assessment. "It doesn't matter if you're Greg Louganis, an elastic waistband is going to make you look like you've got love handles." he said.
It all sounds a bit daunting, reminiscent of the terror that the words "swimsuit season" can summon in the female population. But those in doubt should aim squarely for the low- to midthigh, not below the knee.
"There's always going to be a guy who wears a Speedo and who looks good in a Speedo, and the odds are you're not that guy," Mr. Peres said. "But the same goes for board shorts. Unless you can hang ten, you shouldn't be wearing them."
If you can't bear the thought of giving up the long board shorts, console yourself with the thought that they will someday make a comeback. Fashion does come in waves.