Camo Cargo Shorts Are Once Again Unhidden
Everyone's always on about timeless here, staples there. But there's barely an item of clothing out there as tenacious as a camo-printed cargo short, despite the lack of credit it has received over this feat, and that special brand of 2000s gaudiness we're quick to reduce it to.
By the hands of fans too young to fully grasp just how polar an opposite these posed to the subsequent Indie Sleaze era's skinny jeans, billowing and cropped military pants have loomed back into frame.
Along with its jort cousin, the camo cargo short is flipping the script on — and bird at — its own divisiveness, refuting claims of its faddishness. In actuality, it’s a dad-core, knee-ish length classic, appreciated anew for its boxily awkward fit, nostalgic merit, and aesthetic resilience.
Stone Island's in on this, as are Ralph Lauren and Valentino. And let's not forget the BAPEs, the Dickies, the Carhartts, and the Stüssys of the world either. On the nicheier side of things, the likes of Chrome Hearts made 10k leather camo shorts, and The Elder Statesman's even knitted a cashmere kind, for crying out loud.
But it doesn't stop there: Camo enthusiast and rapper Lil Yachty's record-slash-clothing label, Concrete Boys, also jumped aboard with a short that smartly trades the usual abstract blotches for the imprint's construction worker logo.
Kendrick Lamar and Playboi Carti, as well as FC Barcelona's Lamine Yamal and NBA player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are right there with Yachty, their recent cargo-shorted outfits reminding of the camo short's Y2K heyday and the sk8erboi to Soulja Boy spectrum therein.
On TikTok, too, all manner of camo shorts are celebrated. Viewers are called upon to chop off the legs of thrifted cargos and DIY a stylish summer go-to (sure is cheaper than eBaying Lil Wayne's Marc Jacobs ones).
“I reckon I've got more camo than a military base", says one such user, before flaunting vintage cargo shorts and other camouflaged gems by makers as disparate as A.P.C., BEAMS, and Acne Studios.
Defying the short shorts trend and anti-shorts movement, supersized camo shorts are clearly back in the good graces of consumers, often paired with similarly of-the-moment shoes like flip flops, loafers, or even Tabis and white socks.
The modern camo-short wearer likes to juxtapose the in-your-faceness of the camo short with items that undercut the print's harsher and frat bro associations.
Baggy shorts are not, it turns out, all chill, no thrill. Because skimming fit checks far and wide, the secret to camo shorts’ re-arisen popularity is all about marrying hard and soft, high and low, the serious with the quirky. This also pertains to the face-off of form-fitted versus amorphous, of wearing tight tanks above the camo short's ballooning pant legs.
Now, we did already call the beginning of this redemption arc just short of a year ago, citing numerous camo-cameos on runways, celebrities, and campaigns as proof. As that goes, however, seeds sown take some time to grow and blossom.
Never fully gone, but briefly sidelined on occasion, the camo cargo short is in full bloom again — and fuller than it’s been in some time. After peak flows in the aughts, camo shorts would ebb for focus to shift onto far slenderer silhouettes, before they washed over us again as part of streetwear's infiltration of luxury in the 2010s.
In the wake of the quietly luxurious 2020s, the camo print regained some control thanks to so-called Dirt Bag Chic, Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton “Damierflage,” and A$AP Rocky's frequent, influential endorsement of the style, shortened cargo version and all.
So, the camo print didn't drop its disguise. Its return was, indeed, just hiding in plain sight.
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