Fashion History Mystery #49: A Brief History of Shorts (Dressed Classic)

Summary

Dressed: The History of Fashion

Fashion History Mystery #49: A Brief History of Shorts (Dressed Classic) — August 22, 2025

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Overview

In this classic episode, hosts April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary tackle a listener question from Australia: "How and when did shorts become a womenswear staple?" The episode traces the fascinating and sometimes controversial adoption of shorts by women, from their 19th-century roots in boys’ clothing and sportswear, through their shocking appearance in early 20th-century fashion, to acceptance as everyday women’s attire. Full of archival research, colorful anecdotes, and witty banter, the episode unpacks the social anxieties and shifting attitudes that accompanied the evolution of shorts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Query and Episode Aim

• Question from Rebecca Beaumont (Australia): When did shorts transition to a women's wardrobe mainstay?
  • Reference to styles from Bermuda shorts to Daisy Dukes.
  • (01:33)

2. Early Use of Shorts and Lexicon

• Early 20th-century magazines used "shorts" mainly to refer to men's/boys' garments or as a textile term.

• Notable first press use in 1922, Women’s Wear Daily, describing British women considering trousers/shorts for sports.

  • Quote:
    "English women may adopt male attire for sports during the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship ... Rowing girls wear shorts. Abbreviated knickers are worn by runners and hurdlers. Cyclists wear breeches and stockings, while javelin throwers favor abbreviated shorts." (03:34)

• Commentary: Into the 1920s, even boys’ shorts were referred to in “quotation marks” as a novelty (03:07).

3. Crossing Gender Lines: Women, Sports, and Scandal

• Shorts for women began as athletic wear—seen in sports (tennis, rowing, cycling, track).

• Example: 1925, unnamed woman golfer in Manhattan wore shorts, creating a sensation.

  • Quote:
    "A sensation was caused on the Van Court Park golf links ... by the appearance of a young woman attired in a pair of very short golf shorts. ... Both male and female golfers regarded the wearer of this innovation with astonishment." (06:37)

• Another example: Early 20th-century Dorothy actress Anna Laughlin sporting very short shorts on stage in 1905 (05:45).

  • Stage performance was a rare “safe space” for such experimentation.

4. Societal Anxiety and Cultural Backlash

• Male anxiety documented over women’s adoption of “their” clothing, captured in satirical and indignant press.

• 1926, Vogue article by George S. Chappell:

  • Quote:
    "May a mere male voice protest ... the wholesale way they are appropriating our ... habits and ... physical forms. Frankly ... we are beginning to feel suppressed. We sense the looming of sex extinction." (08:43)

  • Lampooned the sight of “an over plump young woman in under plump shorts wheeling a baby carriage. Masculine motherhood. Motherly manhood.” (10:16)

• Discussion of women shopping for men’s shorts, especially in Los Angeles, for swim and beachwear. (11:30)

5. From Transgression to Trend

• Couture designers entered the scene: Jean Patou designed chic women’s shorts ensembles for beach and resort wear in the late 1920s.
  • Description: Black crepe de chine shorts, 8–9 inches above knee, with sleeveless white top and plaid sandals. Entirely modern-looking by today's standards. (12:57)
• Recurring point: What starts as scandalous (e.g., revealing swimwear) often becomes everyday fashion over time. (13:44)

6. 1930s Onward: Mainstreaming Shorts

• By the mid-1930s, shorts were normalized as essential resort wear.

  • 1935 Vogue:
    Quote:
    "Shorts are of course an essential if you want to be very smart." (15:06)

• Fashion moved shorts beyond beaches and resorts—socialites pictured in matching short sets for city outings, and materials like corduroy appeared.

• The trend solidified through the 1940s, 50s, and especially the fashion revolutions of the 1960s.

  • Even then, some resistance persisted—e.g., Norman Norell’s tailored women's suit with culottes caused a stir in the mid-60s. (16:39)

7. Changing Attitudes, Personal Preferences

• Fashion cycles noted: shorts lengths and styles (e.g., capris, Bermuda shorts) come in and out of fashion.
  • Both hosts share personal views:
    • April hasn’t owned a pair of shorts in years, preferring skirts. (17:30)
    • Cassidy owns a vintage 1930s pair—a family heirloom—but doesn’t wear them (18:20).

8. Conclusion

• Shorts' journey into women's wardrobes is a story of function, transgression, adaptation, and eventual normalization.
• Listeners are encouraged to reflect on "baby trousers" and their legacy the next time they get dressed. (18:27)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• April Callahan, on defining "shorts":
  "Shorts is also a textile weaving term, so sometimes we see it appear in fashion magazines long before we see it used in the way that we mean here." (02:29)

• Cassidy Zachary, reflecting on the 1920s:
  "...even the appearance of a man in shorts, outside of sports, was considered shocking... so imagine a woman!" (04:32)

• George S. Chappell via April:
  "We sense the looming of sex extinction." (08:43)
  "Honestly, what more pathetically unlovely sight can there be than ... an over plump young woman in under plump shorts wheeled a baby carriage." (10:16)

• April, on fashion cycles:
  "If you really look at the big picture, you can see how styles and silhouettes that were once considered informal, how over time they really tend to become accepted as proper day wear." (13:44)

• Cassidy, about her vintage shorts heirloom:
  "I do own, April, a 1930s pair of these black ready to wear shorts that one of my great aunts had... I just keep them as one of those special treasures." (18:20)

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Useful Timestamps

• 01:33 – Listener question introduction
• 03:07 – Early references to "shorts" in boys’ clothing
• 03:34 – 1922 Women's Wear Daily source on women in shorts for sport
• 05:45 – Theatrical exception: Dorothy's 1905 shorts
• 06:37 – 1925 golfer causes a sensation in shorts
• 08:43 – Vogue 1926: Gender anxiety about women in trousers/shorts
• 11:30 – Women buying men’s shorts for swimwear in the late 1920s
• 12:57 – Jean Patou’s shorts ensemble described
• 15:06 – 1935 Vogue: Shorts are a resort essential
• 16:39 – Evolution through the 1940s–1960s, Norman Norell’s culottes
• 17:30–18:27 – Hosts’ personal reflections on shorts; episode wrap-up

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Takeaway

The adoption of shorts by women is a rich tapestry of cultural negotiation and fashion evolution. From scandal on the golf course to staple summer wear, shorts’ history reveals society’s shifting boundaries around gender, function, and self-expression in clothing. As April and Cassidy show, every item in our wardrobes has a story to tell—and shorts are no exception.

Transcript

[Cassidy Zachary]

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[April Callahan]

Yes, we are currently on our annual summer hiatus from the show as we conduct our summer fashion history tours of the City of Lights. But worry not, we will be back with brand new content dedicated to all of the exciting fashion history exhibitions and other behind the scenes experiences we have encountered here.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Until then, please enjoy this episode from the Dressed archive of over 500 past shows.

[April Callahan]

With over 7 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Welcome to Dress the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your hosts.

[April Callahan]

Cassidy Zachary and April Callahan. Welcome, dress listeners, to yet another round of fashion history mystery where we answer your questions and today's query comes to us all the way from the Land down under listener Rebecca Beaumont wrote to us very recently and she said hi from Australia. You have spoken a lot about hemlines and the birth of the miniskirt, but I would like to know about how and when shorts became a womenswear staple. From Bermuda shorts to Daisy Dukes, they are a mainstay of my summer wardrobe.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Ah yes, and this is such an excellent question, Rebecca. And pinpointing the exact moment shorts began to appear in women's closets or dresser drawers was one that really required April and I to put on our fabulous dress detective hats and dive into our databases of of historic magazines.

[April Callahan]

Yeah, and Cass, I think both of us had some sort of like very general awareness that by the middle of the 1930s we see very avant garde fashionable women wearing shorts, but usually only in the context of vacation or resort wear. So I wanted to investigate when we first see this term shorts being used by the fashion press. And one fun thing I learned is that shorts is also a textile weaving term, so sometimes we see it appear in fashion magazines long before we see it used in the way that we mean here, referring to short pants or short trousers.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And any of our listeners who listened to our episode on the history of the sailor suit from a while back will recall that young boys during the 19th century Donned ensembles which featured shortened trousers. But using this term shorts for these children's wear garments was still so novel that an article entitled Summer Togs for Happy Boys, which appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1923, it used quotations around the term shorts.

[April Callahan]

Yeah, and you see this again and again when it's used during the 1920s. And so while the garment itself had been the staple of young boys wardrobes for decades, it's not until around this time in the 20s that we start to see women embracing shorts. And the earliest reference I could find dates back to 1922 when women's wear Daily wrote, quote, english women may adopt male attire for sports during the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship. Some. Some comment has been made that the dress worn by the players is hardly suitable to such active game and that trousers should be worn instead of skirts. It is pointed out that other sports in which women take an active part, they have many instances copied the male attire or followed it closely. Rowing girls wear shorts. Abbreviated knickers are worn by runners and hurdlers. Cyclists wear breeches and stockings, while javelin throwers favor abbreviated shorts.

[Cassidy Zachary]

End quote. So it seems shorts, I just love it. I love how these are all like, quote, unquote, men attire, male attire in the 1920s. And women are obviously like just taking it and running with it during this period, quite literally, sometimes quite literally. So it seems shorts were first borrowed from the sports where men were wearing for certain physical activities. So Even during the 1920s, the appearance of a man in shorts, even outside of very specific sporting situations was even. That was even considered rather shocking. So it's a very new thing outside of sports. So take for instance the blurb that. There's this blurb that ran in January of 1925 in women's wear Daily. And it highlighted that the department store Macy's had a life size photo of a Broadway star. His name was Arthur Ayersworth and he's wearing golf shorts. And this is up in their window, right? And the quote is, executives of the men's clothing department of Macy's induced Mr. Ayersworth to pose for the picture for them after he had startled the stage world by appearing in one of the acts of his play wearing shorts. It's understood that Mr. Aylesworth was the first actor to use shorts on the stage. Wow, that's quite the statement.

[April Callahan]

Yeah. Is it true?

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, I know. And that just got me thinking, April, because actually there's this I don't know if a lot of our listeners know, but the wizard of Oz originated as a stage play at the dawn of the 20th century. And this actress, Anna Laughlin, actually originated the role of Dorothy in this musical stage version. And there's all these fabulous images of her and the lion and she's wearing these really short shorts for in 1905, which is incredibly early, but when you start to think about it again, stage actresses, performers were exempt from a lot of those same societal dress codes because the stage was almost like this safe place for this sort of fantasy expression, experimentation. But I have to say, these are like above her thigh, like up in. In her thigh. I still feel like for that period it would have been scandalous, but maybe not because she was playing a young girl. I'm not quite sure. Yeah.

[April Callahan]

And it may have been acceptable for an actress in a fantasy role to wear shorts on stage. She did have stockings on underneath them, but not so much in the real world because despite the rising hemlines of the 1920s, there was quite the scandal that was caused by a woman golfer in 1925 when she appeared on a golf course in upper Manhattan wearing shorts. Quote, A sensation was caused on the Van Court park golf links on a cold day recently by the appearance of a young woman attired in a pair of very short golf shorts. This garment, which style decrees will be the thing for golf next year for men, was made of woolen fabric. Owing to the temperature not many degrees above freezing point, both male and female golfers regarded the wearer of this innovation with astonishment. Needless to say, it was the only pair on the course.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Know more about this woman, this trailblazing.

[April Callahan]

Bold woman, they never gave her name. In a couple of the sources that I read that talked about this.

[Cassidy Zachary]

So interesting and it seems so banal to us now, but it was so incredibly shocking at this time that a woman wearing golf shorts actually made fashion news. It was in the pages of Women's World Daily and more than once that year, other articles from 1925 comment on how both men and women at Swiss resorts had adopted the traditional short Tyrolean quote unquote baby trousers of the region. So many of the women golfers who had paired their Swiss shorts with knee high stockings, and of course this bared their knees. They were actually critiqued by men who chastised them for potentially exposing their knees to a painful sunburn. Because apparently men, April, did not face this same problem.

[April Callahan]

I know, it's so good, so shocking.

[Cassidy Zachary]

We are again facing the anxiety society has of women appropriating menswear. How many times have we talked about this on the show? It's been two years. Two. Over two years. So like maybe 30, 40. A lot.

[April Callahan]

Yeah, it's come up quite a bit. And just to underscore this societal anxiety, you can't get much more explicit than this article that was published in Vogue in 1926, which was authored by George S. Chapel. And he writes, quote, may a mere male voice protest against certain tendencies increasingly evidenced by our ladies of today. I refer to put it briefly to the wholesale way they are appropriating our abimon, our habits and our mental processes and our very physical forms. Frankly, then, in speaking for a large number of my cogenders, we are beginning to feel suppressed. We sense the looming of sex extinction.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I love the term cogenders too. Like, what is that? I guess I don't love the term. That's a very interesting term, cogenders. Is he referring to his fellow males? I'm assuming? Yes, I do believe no. Yeah, no more sex distinction. What a shocking concept for the 1920s. And Chapel actually goes on to say, quote, let me be more explicit and refer to some of the ways in which women are gradually ousting men from their natural imminence and overlordship in the first place. In the material item of clothing, they're undoubtedly stealing our stuff. And then he takes issue with women wearing trousers for any sort of sporting activity outside of riding horses. He derides representation of women in the English House of Commons. And then he's discouraging women from aspiring to any profession outside of secretarial work.

[April Callahan]

And you probably guessed it, friends, the matter of women wearing shorts is also not spared. He writes, quote, honestly, what more pathetically unlovely sight can there be? That which my eyes have seen near an Adirondack camp where an over plump young woman in under plump shorts wheeled a baby carriage. Masculine motherhood. Motherly manhood. Ugh. It was horrible. Yes, but only a sample of what has now become a frequent occurrence. And Cass, this article, I'm gonna send it to you because it's. It just has all of this stuff in it. There's a lot more.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, a lot to unpack there. And he's actually far from done because there's this whole section condemning smart young women who have now turned to doing bits of their shopping in men's specialty stores, so particularly for sweaters and shorts, which was apparently a whole, whole thing in the mid to late 1920s. Article after article notes, quote, men's shorts are Selling in large numbers to girls and men's shop notes, girls now buy men's athletic trunks. So the favored materials that these shop, these women shoppers were looking for included plaids, pastels and printed novelty patterns.

[April Callahan]

And something that I noted especially about these articles about women buying shorts and menswear shops. And sometime around 1927, a lot of them reporting from the west coast, several of these articles were talking about shops in Los Angeles particularly. And I mentioned this because if you think about it, and you might have put this two and two together, listeners, women were buying them to wear as swimwear. They were basically pairing them with these separate long tank tops that kind of made up the fashionable swimwear ensembles of the late 20s and the early 30s. And of course, fashion designers also capitalized on this new trend. Haute couturiers like Jean Patou now created beach and swimwear ensembles which featured shorts and in vogue from in 1927, one of his designs is photographed. It's really beautiful pair of wide legged black crepe de chine shorts. They're fairly short. They hit about 9 inches, 8 or 9 inches above the knee. And they're paired with just a simple sleeveless white T shirt that has a band of black trim at the neck. And the model that's wearing them, she has on plaid sandals. And if you've removed her swimwear, her bathing cap, what she has on is 100% an ensemble that a woman might wear today if it was hot outside and she needed to run errands. 100%. It's like just a pair of T shirt and shorts and it looks entirely contemporary.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. And I just actually want to remind our listeners too that we've done a two part episode on the history of the swimsuit. Lots of stuff to unpack there over the years, starting in the. I think we started in the early 19th century into the present day. So definitely check that out. And what you said too about it being without the swim cap being something incredibly fashionable, I think that we've mentioned this before more than once on the show, how if you really look at the big picture, you can see how styles and silhouettes that were once considered informal, how over time they really tend to become accepted as proper day wear. So over the course of a century, what was then considered this rather bold and revealing beachwear look, it's now something like you said, we might pop over to the grocery store. And so it's really interesting to see those transitions over the years.

[April Callahan]

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[Cassidy Zachary]

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[April Callahan]

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[Cassidy Zachary]

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[April Callahan]

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[Cassidy Zachary]

Right. And this is really something that continues to develop all throughout the 40s, the 50s, and of course, the 1960s, this wearing of shorts for fashionable leisure pursuits. However, Even in the 1960s, wearing culottes may raise an eyebrow or two if worn in the city. American fashion designer Norman Norell actually caused quite the stir in the mid-60s when he designed a women's suit suit which paired this really nice tailored jacket with knee length culottes, which were worn with tights. And some people in the mid-60s still had a difficult time accepting shorts worn outside of beach locales, outside of resorts. However, as we've mentioned so many times on the show, the fashion revolution of the 1960s really threw out many of those old school rules of fashion. And women wearing shorts for a wider variety of occasions became more much, much more commonplace.

[April Callahan]

But not at my house, Cass. I have to fess up. I do not own one single pair of shorts, not even for working out. I'm not saying I've never owned shorts. I definitely have. I wore them a lot when I was in my teens, but I just don't think they suit me now. I don't have anything against them per se, but they just, I don't like if I'm in a store, I don't like, gravitate to go look at shorts.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I feel like they come in and out of fashion too, just like anything. And the length comes in and out of fashion, like changing like what the fashionable style is. I kind of capris wear back in, which is like a long, longer, short, not like necessarily a short. And the shorter you get, Bermuda shorts, et cetera. But yeah, I'm not a short fan either. I prefer skirts in the summer. However, I do own April, a 1930s pair of these black ready to wear shorts that one of my great aunts had from the 1930s.

[April Callahan]

Oh, fun.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. And I've always hoped one day that I'll fit into them, but as of right now, I just keep them as one of those special treasures.

[April Callahan]

Ah, I love that. Rebecca, I hope this answered your question as to how and when women first began adopting the garment known as shorts. I think that does it. This week, dress listeners, for us, may you consider the legacy of the quote unquote baby trousers, which may or may not reside in your wardrobe. Next time you get dressed, please head to restpodcast on Instagram or restpodcast without the underscore on Facebook to check out the visual content associated with each week's episodes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And remember, we always love hearing from you. So if you'd like to write to us you can do so@hello dressedhistory.com dressedhistory.com is also our website where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter, our in person tours and online fashion history courses and you can check out whatever else we have up our finely tailored sleeves.

[April Callahan]

We get so many questions from you all about our recommendations to for fashion history books so if you are interested you can always find a link in our show notes to our bookshop Bookshelf. So that address is bookshop.org shop dressed and there you can find over 150 of our favorite fashion history titles.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And do you love Dressed but want to skip the ads? You can now sign up for Ad free listening with any tier on our Dressed History Patreon where you can also chat with your fellow fashion history lovers and attend one of our live Q&As and so much more.

[April Callahan]

We are also excited to now be part of the Airwave Network and their premium ad free history subscription airwave history plus available on Apple Podcasts. The subscription brings dress and also 27 other popular history podcasts ad free for just $5.99 per month. More More information on Patreon and Airwave is available at the link in our bio.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Thank you as always for tuning in and more Dressed coming your way very soon. The History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media.

[April Callahan]

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[Cassidy Zachary]

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[April Callahan]

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[Cassidy Zachary]

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[April Callahan]

No, it's great. It's definitely worth jokes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Thank you. Thanks, Anna. Make sure to subscribe to in the Test Kitchen so you don't miss an episode. You can watch in the Test Kitchen on YouTube and Spotify and listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Can't wait to see you in the Test Kitchen.