Who Wears Short Shorts

There's a whisper going around among us women over forty. Perhaps you aren't there yet. Perhaps, owing to some wonderful endless flowing cornucopia of self-esteem, you never will. But for the rest of us there is the question which cannot be stopped:



Can I still wear shorts?



I think we're all in agreement that the bloomer short being bandied about this year is no longer for us, but honestly when was it for us? What woman has been heard to moan "Oh, if only something would add width to my hips and then hug my upper thigh with a death grip"? J. Crew defines this as a novelty short. J. Crew doesn't understand that if I want novelty anywhere near my midsection I'll change vitamins.

But even in shorts which don't do anything more novel than expose the bottom half of one's leg, it's still a minefield. Talbots tag-line for the season,"It's always summer somewhere," feels kind of a like a threat to me. I mean, there are my knees. Knees are adorable on toddlers, hopefully functional on atheletes and are what separate us from cacti, but can anyone say they're attractive? I'm sure there are websites dedicated to men and women who are very very pleased at the sight of a knee, but I think we can safely say knee-fanciers are in the minority.

Then you reach a magic age determined by your genetics and lifestyle choices when all of a sudden you no longer just have the Not-Very-Attractive-knee, you have the NVA knee with some newly flaccid skin above it. You're standing there, blamelessly waiting for your dry-cleaning or your number to come up at the deli, and you look down and AUGH! The dermotological version of an origami crane! But it's the last warm day of autumn so you cover up and try to forget.

Then it gets warm again and your corduroy pants look incongrous. So, shorts. What to do? Do you go with the Lilly Pulitzer pattern on the shorts, hoping your knees will go unnoticed as people try to determine why your shorts are bedecked with tropically-hued mutant sperm? A variation of that, known as "MY EYES!!!" can be found at LLBean.

Or do you go with the mid-knee style which, while covering the offending area, gives you the "Lutheran church group at Elderhostel in Prague" look?

Or do I switch over to skirts, which I tried to do last year? Apparently, skirts are what Italian and French women wear instead of shorts. In theory, a casual skirt should take no more effort than walking shorts, but when I put on a pair of shorts I hardly ever think about them again. In a skirt I'm either doing battle with a hurricane-force updraft which seems to be following only me or I'm in search of my zipper, which should be in the middle of my back and yet is constantly migrating toward my sternum.


We were discussing this Monday while the kids ran up and down the field, their healthy legs lean and firm, their knees surrounded by taut skin, when our observations were interrupted by the impatient clicking of a tongue. One of the kids had been delivered by his grandmother and she rolled her eyes in mock contempt. "I don't know why you girls worry about these things," she said, "You all look fine. Besides, my friends and I wear shorts all the time."

It was an epiphany. I might not be wearing shorts this year, but once I hit seventy I can wear them again. I'll be so delighted to have them back I'll wear them all the time. They'll contrast nicely with my sequinned holiday sweaters.