It’s starting to warm up in New York which begs the question—what exactly are the summer shorts of the season? One of the best parts about attending fashion shows for a job is the way that the steady exposure to newness makes you assess the things you think you know about your own personal style at any given moment. I’ve just come back from seeing the resort 2025 shows at Australian Fashion Week in Sydney, and when it comes to summer shorts, well, they’ve given me much to think about.
It was the second day of shows, and while waiting for Beare Park—a contemporary brand with a very ’90s minimalism vibe to start—I looked around and realized an inordinate amount of women were wearing bermuda shorts. I saw bermuda shorts worn with matching jackets, and bermuda shorts worn with cowboy boots, bermuda shorts with teeny tops, and bermuda shorts with oversized shirts. They were everywhere. “The Aussie girls really love a bermuda short,” I texted at least three of my chats. Then the show began and out came a model in natural wash blue denim bermuda shorts paired with a button-down layered underneath a sweater, layered underneath a cardigan, all three of which were tucked into the waistband of the pants. The look was a little too styled, I thought, and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about those shorts.
Then I remembered the lapis blue acid-wash version that walked the day before at Albus Lumen, where designer Marina Afonina had completely rejected her sleek zen aesthetic for something more akin to a beachy boho vibe. But it wasn’t until I was at the Verner show a few days later, where designer Ingrid Verner decided to play with the surfer-y stereotypes that Australia is known for that it really hit me—wait, are baggy bermudas my official summer shorts?
