Okay, I am an expert on this subject... and not because I've been talking about the issue of men in shorts for 20 years. I was there, at ground zero, in the summer of 1971, when the "hot pants" fashion trend peaked. It was the summer after my sophomore year of college, I was 20 years old, and I worked — for what was probably less than $2 an hour — in the juniors department of Lit Brothers department store in Camden county, New Jersey. New hot pants outfits came in every week and we positioned them on the racks near the store entryway so they'd, presumably, mesmerize the passersby. I saw and handled this merchandise in real time. It was not made of denim. It was polyester. It was certainly not cut off and frayed. It had neatly finished edges. And most important, it had a 2-INCH INSEAM.
Now let's look at what that NYT is calling hot pants:
The article leans heavily into the idea that these shorts are really really shorty short. Key language: "chopped-to-the-heavens jean shorts," "Mr. Weir’s shorts were short," "snipped high enough that fans quite a distance from the stage could make out Mr. Weir’s upper thighs," "not Daisy Dukes, they were 'Bobby Shorts,'" "The Bob Weir Inseam... five inches max."
5 inches! 5 inches, you say?! Hot pants had a 2-INCH INSEAM! A woman in shorts with a 5-inch inseam would — in the era of hot pants — have been seen as frumpy and ultra-modest.
Don't fight with me. I am a 1970s hot-pants purist. I was there. I didn't measure the inseam at the time, but I handled the merchandise, and I've researched the measurement, and the number is 2 inches. You may marvel — I'm marveling now — at how these pants could adequately enclose a woman's crotch, let alone a man's.
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104 comments:
Prof: "I didn't measure the inseam at the time, but I handled the merchandise"
Glass of water for Mr Humphries....! CC, JSM
Quelle surprise. NYT is not a reliable source of news.
I'm not going to argue this one. Those are clearly not hot pants. They look like the kind of shorts men wore in the '70s and into the '80s before the long, baggy shorts trend took over.
Just from the photo, those are exactly like the cutoff blue jeans, "cutoffs," that I, or if I am talking about my childhood, me and all my friends wore every summer. In winter we kept them functional with iron on knee patches, or if big sis was in a good mood, sewn on patches, but in summer, this was their fate. It has a genuinely authentic cultural look to me.
I remember Lit Brothers!
Don't fight with me.
Why not? You pick fights all the time with with normal, people.
You may marvel — I'm marveling now — at how these pants could adequately enclose a woman's crotch …
It couldn’t. What do you think the point of that fashion was?
those are called" cut offs
Those used to be called cut-offs.
But they've always been jorts.
Yeah, I can also verify by personal experience that a 5 inch inseam is only really short if you're comparing it to the board short 7, 9, or more inch inseams today. Women's 'short shorts' were basically men's gym shorts in the early 1970s. By the late 1970s the inseams on some men's shorts styles had started to creep down but mostly for "coach's shorts" which included hip and waist pockets, and they were still tight fitting polyester, not denim.
The only person in the world who should be wearing cut-off jeans in the first place is Daisy Duke.
Just to get the chronology straight. The "hot pants" fashion trend peaked in 1971 (and was short-lived). "The Dukes of Hazzard" premiered in 1979, 8 years later. It had nothing to do with hot pants. It was the old tradition of turning your jeans into shorts when they got old. Typically, the knees wore through. Then they had a new life as cut-offs. That "Can't Stop the Music" clip, showing very short cut off jeans on men is from 1980.
"The only person in the world who should be wearing cut-off jeans in the first place is Daisy Duke."
Well, she wore them best, but she was way late to the game.
If you use the hyphen, my bet is that you never wore them out of economic necessity.
Just one more example -- when we read in the popular press, news about a topic with which we have some history and/or knowledge, we all too often find that it is wrong. Yet we assume that the all the other stuff published there is AOK.
"If you use the hyphen, my bet is that you never wore them out of economic necessity."
I just told you I made less than $2 an hour.
I remember the hot pants outfit at Lits that I would have bought. Can't remember what it cost, but it was way too many hours. It was like a one piece garment with, I think, a jacket. Black with white trim all around the edges. After resisting over the summer, I was glad I didn't have it because wearing hot pants had already become something ridiculous and it wouldn't have fit anything I was doing in those days... which included going to Grateful Dead concerts at the Fillmore East.
@Althouse: Were Lemmy's shorts "hot pants"? His contemporaries seemed to think so: link
Those are jorts.
It's what Gators wear, with no regard given to gender.
JB speaks for me. "HUH!"
James Brown ♬HOT PANTS
There was a time on Love Boat when the proper Bermudas that the male officers wore turned into 5" shorts. Whatever Althouse may think shorts as part of a tropical uniform, these lacked dignity.
Did you ever notice how when you start talking about something you read in The Times you often find yourself needing to decide whether you want to say ignoramuses or ignorami.
If you were going to Grateful Dead concerts, at Fillmore East...
I'm just saying, we didn't wear those things by choice. Looking at that picture is like looking at a picture of my own legs in high school, well, we were not allowed to wear cutoffs in school, they were more of a summer vacation thing. My oldest brother wouldn't wear them, because he had a real job at the supermarket and had to maintain a certain dignity. If I wanted spending money, I would have to screen crawfish and dobsons at the river and sell them to the bait shop.
When we would screen a tony, baby bullhead, we would drop everything and use it to go catch a walleye.
I’m a high school graduate, puttered rounded in college, didn’t really do much. I always read anything I could get my hands on and my dad made sure I got to read serious deep stuff. I’m appalled at the elite media. This is in everything they do, stupid kids that memorized some stuff and now they think they’re smart, yet not one of them know the difference between a racist and a bigot and yet it’s non-fucking stop every damned day. I do.
Very jealous of your youthful job Jaq!
…and so children that's how hot pants became the turning point in the war to make NYT great again. Sleep well…
I worked and lived in OshKosh bib overalls when I was a young man because I worked at hard laboring jobs out of doors. Paid my own way through university and law school from doing so.
No clothing in the world as confortable as bib overalls.
And mezzrow, a James Brown link is always a delight!
’…which included going to Grateful Dead concerts at the Fillmore East.’
Groovy.
Agreed. Those are not hot pants.
I just learned that Can't Stop the Music was directed by Nancy Walker, aka Rosie with Bounty "the quicker picker upper".
We respect your knowledge of hot pants. Bob was just wearing normal cutoffs.
Gunnery Sargent Althouse: “Two inches on your inseam, Pyle! Two inches!”
Nobody ever had to point out the class differences between Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn to me.
Jaq said...
“Nobody ever had to point out the class differences between Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn to me.”
Or - staying Canadian - the class differences between Tom Sawyer and My Heart Will Go On.
If the topic of conversation moves from pant inseams to pant creases, David Brooks will join the chat.
When were short shorts a thing? They were different than hot pants I think. Either way there are some fond memories involved.
What in the world ever became of sweet Don?
he lost his sparkle, you know he isn't the same
Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine
All a friend can say is, "Ain't it a shame?"
Bruce Jenner’s short shorts are just gay, and always were, even in the eighties or unless you were John McEnroe.
What we need to see is a return of the 'Poom Poom' shorts, as the girls used to call them. These are the ones that are so short, a healthy slice of butt cheek is showing on either side.
mmmhmm
2" inseam is almost a swimsuit .
Hot pants weren't all that hot. They were in East Coast thing for sure because back in those days the West Coast was all about being outdoors in the sunshine. We were all running around in Jean cutoffs during the summer just like Tim in Vermont describes. Dolphin shorts at UCSB in 1978 were the bomb.
“You may marvel — I'm marveling now — at how these pants could adequately enclose a woman's crotch, let alone a man's.“
Bruce Jenner was tucking. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I worked — for what was probably less than $2 an hour — in the juniors department of Lit Brothers department store in Camden county, New Jersey.
My parents met working at the Lit Brothers across the Delaware River in Philadelphia, about 10 years earlier that you. We're practically siblings.
Who wears short-shorts?
We wear short-shorts.
If you dare wear short-shorts, Nair for short-shorts...
Lit Brothers should be the name of a liquor store.
Everyone is conservative about what she knows best.
Althouse: hot pants :: Bob Weir: Sugar Magnolias
Lit Brothers should be the name of a Dead album
We need a hot pants ruling on Bob Weir Action Pants.
BTW, I do not accept that hot pants peaked in 1971.
I started wearing cut-offs in the late 60s. I was visiting my childhood friend in another state for a week and I had a pair with me. One afternoon his mother informed me that she had "fixed" those shorts for me with pinking shears.
Some of the things women wear to the gym these days make hot pants look like board shorts. . . . .
I wore hotpants in public ONCE in the summer of 1971 and that was it-- the fad was over. By 1975, skirts that touched the knees were the style. I know because I too worked at a department store.
My senior year of high school the administration found out that they did not have a valid dress code. Some of us girls wore "hot pants" even in winter. (Yes, Wisconsin winter.) I'm trying to remember what those really short dresses were called, the ones with matching "panties' because of occasional wind gusts. I had some of those also. That's back when I had "legs."
’…the class differences between Tom Sawyer and My Heart Will Go On.’
Golf clap.
Hot pants peaked (here) either in 1972, when the Datsun 240Z was described as "turning more heads than hotpants", or in 1974 when my girlfriend wore them under her High School graduation robe.
Side note: the 240 was named "Fairlady" in Japan. I've always assumed that was because it was clearly designed to look like a Ferrari. Anybody know?
Also, the shorts we all wore for tennis, with roughly 3" inseams, were later called "stubbies". Nobody called them that in the early 70s; they were called "shorts".
Some of the things women wear to the gym these days make hot pants look like board shorts
yes, hot pants are way more crotch modest than most of the leggings worn to the gym, or everywhere else in public. The short dress with the short bike pants is a great g-rated look imo…
Yah the resort wear catalogs had much short inseam shorts for the guys this year…
Rocco: "’…the class differences between Tom Sawyer and My Heart Will Go On.’"
You can just about sing one to the other's tune. Kind of like Amazing Grace and the Gilligan's Island theme.
If I had better command of AI, I'd get it to do the needful. CC, JSM
Weir is wearing cut-offs. Every guy had some; I cut my own, but with no clear concept of length--some were almost like Jenner's and others ended up nearly at my knees.
When it comes to womens' wear, I'm all for short if the legs are nice.
I'm not good on the chronology of hot pants vs short shorts etc. but always look forward to the next iteration of the slit skirt. I got a lot of joy watching the hotties on campus struggle to tame them on windy days.
As I remember it, a key issue with cutting off your jeans was the length of the pockets. You'd want the bottoms of the pockets inside the pants. Eventually letting the pockets hang out the bottom was accepted and normal, but don't let you genitals hang out. That looks really incompetent. Bob never did that (as far as I know).
“I saw and handled this merchandise in real time. It was not made of denim. It was polyester. It was certainly not cut off and frayed. It had neatly finished edges. And most important, it had a 2-INCH INSEAM. … [Links to a Bruce Jenner video]”
Ann and the Angry Inseam
I guess a leading indicator should have been Bruce Jenner in a crop top and hot pants.
Wilbur said...
No clothing in the world as confortable as bib overalls.
Given the chronology, I think the men of a certain age -- including myself -- eschewed moving toward longer shorts for a very simple reason.
Whether you were disco or rock, nobody wanted to look the bumpkin like that one-and-only icon Haystacks Calhoon.
’I've always assumed that was because it was clearly designed to look like a Ferrari.’
It was. A decent copy of the Daytona 365 GTB/4, in shape and size, minus the 4.4L Colombo V12.
What in the world ever became of wack kak?
he lost his mind, the one what took a hit
Writing some trash he knew he never could take back
All a guy can say is, "What a dumb shit!"
I was kind of an oddity (and still am if you ask my wife) but cut off jean shorts were universal in my orbit in the 70s outside of Philadelphia. Great admiration was accorded to those with the longest strands that hang down. Then I had to go tennis, and I had to wear the short white shorts with a polo shirt. Those were some 3" shorter than my cut offs, but we had a dress code for sports. It made everyone look ridiculous with extra tennis balls in either pocket.
Jeans shorts are the worst shorts. But then back in the day Levis were real denim too.
Per Mezzrow's comment I have a photo of last year's Gator ladies volleyball team ("support local sports!") and they aren't wearing cutoffs but whoooo boy the shorts are short.
Very good team.
I worked at the Village Theater in Westwood, CA (home of UCLA) in college. One of the films we featured was "The Candidate," a Robert Redford vehicle, and the candy girls (one of whom was my girlfriend at the time) all wore T-shirts emblazoned with Redford's face as replacements for their uniforms. The T-shirts were large, but barely made the "2-inch inseam" of hot pants. My girlfriend's mother came to see the movie one night, saw her daughter in the T-shirt "uniform" and returned the next day with a couple of pairs of psychedelic print underwear. She said "If you're going to show it off, at least make it interesting..."
If you google ‘bob weir short shorts’ you’ll see some jean cutoffs with an inseam of less than an inch. You’d think by now the Times would have installed some ‘web search’ software on at least a couple of their mainframes.
Sorry, senior moment. The theater that featured "The Candidate" was the Bruin, across the street from the Village. My girlfriend was a cashier there. But the rest of the story is still true...
Happy Birthday, Professor Althouse.
Long may you post!
BG, those short dresses with matching panties were called "Sizzlers".
"Wince said...
Whether you were disco or rock, nobody wanted to look the bumpkin like that one-and-only icon Haystacks Calhoon."
Dexy's Midnight Runners begs to differ.
Sorry, wrong thread.
typingtalker you have described what Richard Feynman identified as "Gell-Mann amnesia." If it were not endemic the NYT would have gone under a long, long time ago.
I wore hot pants in 1971. I 100% agree with Ann's description.
Now I’m wondering if the legendary Bobby Short was named after Bobby Shorts.
I started wearing overalls daily when I had my urban farm chicken herd back in Portland. I still wear them every day. They are comfortable as hell and make it easier to itch your balls when necessary. If it makes me look like Grandpa Walton, so be it.
I'm wearing them now. Scratch, scratch.
AI : “No, Bobby Short was not named after "bobby shorts." His name was a natural diminutive of his given name, Robert Waltrip Short.”
There is more… “There is a common cultural association between short shorts (often called "Bobby Weir shorts" in reference to the Grateful Dead guitarist) and the name Bobby, but this is unrelated to the lounge singer's name.”
Who wears short shorts? My tennis shorts in the late '70s were pretty short, but not hot pants or Daisy Dukes short.
My last pair of cutoffs was probably in the early '70s. Cutoffs can be jeans, cords or other pants, right? Jorts is a more modern term, from the '90s. To me, jorts are hemmed and store bought denim shorts.
I never got to see Lit Brothers' Christmas Village, but apparently, it's been moved intact to a museum in Montgomery County, so there's still a chance.
My dad wore cut off jeans in the late 70s. And had a mustache. My mom never wore hit pants but did don a tube top and a halter top.
Bobby Short is from my home town, along with Dick and Jerry Van Dyke, Gene Hackman, Donald O'Connor and Helen Morgan.
I wore those all summer in college. Buy jeans in the fall, wear them all winter, cut them off for summer, repeat till graduation. It was considered a bit weird to do anything else.
Basketball shorts used to be super short, so Bob's weren't very short for that time:
https://famewatcher.com/vintage-basketball-shorts-from-1930s-to-1990s.html
I think women's fashion in the sixties was the hottest. Hair full free and down, hip huggers, real bikinis (not thongs), bras burning. It was sexy pandemonium I tell ya!
So “hot pants” were called hot pants because they provided ventilation. See Chick’s video link up above. I learn something everyday here.
Next time we do "hip huggers."
It's not every day you see a reference to Dexy's Midnight Runners. Back in the 1980's their song Come On Eileen was the go to song for every nightclub DJ. It would be getting late and people were drunk and tired, they's play that song and everyone would rush on the the floor singing along.
I meant to add, every nightclub in Ireland...
"I meant to add, every nightclub in Ireland..."
I was gonna say, kind of reminds me of my experience in Sydney with bars and "Skippy the Bush Kangaroo." I remember being out one night and there was a live band, and the fiddler breaks out the first couple of bars of Skippy, and suddenly the whole place is on the floor, swaying in time.
I don’t want to wave my old macho creds, but if you wore those shorts in my old neighborhood you’d pay for it. I’m with Althouse. Men look pathetic, wearing shorts, even young men.
I saw all the old greats in the old Fillmore East. Or almost all of them. I did miss the dead, but then they were never one of my favorites.
The Dead reincarnated as Dave Mathews Band.
1971. Hot pants. High school flashbacks. ‘Nuff said.
I want to wave my matcho cred by saying cutoff Levi's were de riguere on Southern California construction sites in the 70's during the summer.
I remember an episode of "The Partridge Family" that featured hot pants and generally whether they were suitable attire for their shows.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bubba252/3561115060
Mkd said...
BG, those short dresses with matching panties were called "Sizzlers".
Thanks, Mkd! It has been so long ago..."sigh"
2$ an hour in 1971 is the same as $16 an hour today.
Forget the hyphen, I was going to say "If you called it Lit Brothers, you never worked there." But Ann fixed it in her comment, she clearly worked there (at Lits).
Contemporary of the Althouse cohort here. Cut-offs were the original "re-purposing." Hot pants were never second use -- they had a distinct purpose. 1969-1973, USMA, winter. THE most appealing eye candy during football season was seeing all the young ladies come up to West Point for the games, dressed in hot pants with a "maxi-coat." The flash of leg as they walked was mesmerizing.
Nairy a chance those are short shorts.
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