Online discourse would have you believe that the summer of 2024 is when men finally embraced the short-short, as evidenced by the many memes around “inseam length.” But there’s one corner of the world where the very online penchant for micro- shorts has yet to take hold: Bermuda . Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise, as the British Island territory—where knee-grazing shorts paired with over-the-calf socks pass as business attire—is thought to have originated the truncated trouser alternative in the first place.
As Gina Steede, an administrative assistant at the 106-year-old island Institution the English Sports Shop , recounts, the style can be credited to a Bermudian businessman named Nathaniel Coxon. Around the time of the First World War, Coxon operated a tea shop staffed by servers in navy blazers and long cotton pants. But the cumulative heat from many steaming teapots turned the shop into a furnace, threatening a staff revolt.
As a compromise, Coxon decided to shear said trousers above the knee, rather than dishing out on entirely new uniforms. “Although the employees found the style a little silly looking, it was much more comfortable in the environment they were working in,” Steede says. The distinctive look would soon be appreciated by customers, too.
One such patron was British Rear Admiral Mason Berridge, who famously found the get-up to be “a bit of old Oxford and a bit of the Khyber Pass,” and commissioned a pair himself. With such a blessing from.