Do You Jort?
Five superior jean shorts for Summer 2025 and...a skort!
Welcome back! Today, a much requested newsletter tackling “the best jean shorts.” I might argue there has never been a better time to jean short. There is no unifying jort trend at the moment. There are bermudas, hot pants, distressed pairs, tidily hemmed styles. The world is your (our) oyster. Though that does make the process of choosing more overwhelming, naturally.
I tried on two dozen pair for today’s letter, and dissected at least two dozen more in stores, analyzing fit across fit models on different e-comm platforms and zooming in on the details. Below is where I ended up. This is what works for me: a little hippy. A little insecure about my thighs. Extremely style conscious and decidedly function-first-focused. I feel like maybe a few of us fit that category, no? LOL. (OH MY GOD. The LOL aging millennial tell. I won’t even delete this, because it truly adds to the neuroses of this clothing category!)
The superlatives today range from short shorts to white denim to the “next best thing to vintage.” And THEN, there is also a skort!!!! which honestly, might just be the most fun thing here?
We are going to start with the most adventurous and make our way into the everyday - the majority of which are reserved for paid subscribers. Thanks for supporting this work Friends of 5 Things! Without further ado:
Short Shorts…
that won’t make you feel like you’re…hanging out!! I’m slightly shocked with myself that I dared to try this pair. But I knew if I was going to try a “hot pant” jean short that it would have to be Agolde or Citizens of Humanity (same parent company, fun fact!) No one does denim fit better. Not fashion fit…but actual FIT fit for real life human ladies. And they totally delivered!! I feel great in these.
It’s the Ridley short in Reissue.
Funnily enough, I also tried the Ridley in a distressed black cut off style and I couldn’t peel them off my body fast enough. Something about this clean dark wash and the hemmed hem is giving me Criterion Collection. Plus the way they hug my waist, curve down around my bum and somehow do not ride up make these the pair to try if you are short-short-curious. I’m wearing a size 27 - one size up from my usual.
If you are thinking, I love the look but like, I’m sorry…NO. The J.Crew version that are slightly longer and slightly more A-line are also excellent! These are a 26 and roomy - they run big.
Best in White
Agolde’s second (and last, don’t worry there are lots of other fun discoveries to come) award goes to the Indra Short in Fortune Cookie. I’m wearing a size 27. They are roomy to say the least. They sit super low on my waist, which is just how I wanted them. But if you are sensitive to scale, I’d take your regular jean size. This white is so great. It has an ever-so-slight yellow/beige undertone as opposed to a blindingly crisp blueish white. It’s opaque enough to wear with black undies (which I’m wearing in this photo and you sure can’t tell!) and comes hemmed which I’ve been leaning toward lately. It’s also my top choice for a a super baggy shape because the larger than life silhouette somehow reads less trendy in white than blue. They’ve been making my white on white feel anything but boring.
The Classic
Something about the wash, the hem, the straight but not tight nature of this next pair hits all my notes. I ordered and tried out both the 26 and 27 in these and stuck with the 27, which fit exactly how I wanted them to in my head. Reminder, I am 5’5” and wear a size 26/4 for scale. Backing up for one sec, the cardinal rule of jean shorts is to SIZE UP.
Back to the shorts. I found many of the shorts I tried on to hit in a terrible no man’s land that just made me feel hippy or frumpy. So many weren’t exactly long and weren’t short - just blah. The legnth on these feels intentional. They give me just the right amount of “Now and Then”. The wash is a bit gritty, which I have been feeling is creeping back into the zeitgeist. My hunch then solidified during the Celine show last week. Dirty-ish, super faded denim is coming for us! I’ve since washed them and the edges have frayed perfectly (though they require a bit of trimming, don’t be afraid to snip.)