Everything you need to know about shorts fashion

The entire history of shorts in fashion

Humans have worn pants since pants were invented. Pants are long, and sometimes people want to wear shorter pants. So people invented shorts, which are shorter pants.

No one has ever had a problem with this, not even anyone in New York City ("The Big Apple," "A Cold Town with Bigger-Than-Average Acreage, Much Like Jacksonville Except for the Coldness," "The Land of My Opinions on Your Pants That You Need to Know About"), because a person's decision to wear shorts is her or his decision regarding shorts.

Who is allowed to wear shorts, in no particular order?

1. Little boys
2. Girls and women
3. Other males
4. Anybody
5. Babies

Know all the shorts fashion rules

But just because shorts are OK to wear doesn't mean all shorts are OK to wear in all circumstances.

Athletic shorts: Best for when you are exercising, are about to exercise, have just exercised, or feel like wearing athletic shorts.

Denim shorts: Best for when you are "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, a small wrestler who is good at comedy and mimics "Stone Cold" Steve Austin for laughs, Mecha "Stone Cold" Steve Austin vs. Godzilla, or a person who wants denim shorts that are either kind of long, really short or a length in between.

Especially short shorts: It is not OK to wear especially short shorts if you do not want people to see almost your entire leg and almost your entire other leg, but that's your decision from your vantage on the ground and with all the intelligence at your disposal.

Swim trunks: Highly specialized. You must meet one of the following specifications.

• You are swimming in the ocean, a lake, a river, a creek, a pond, a pool, a water park, a flooded Hardee's, or another body of water or other liquid or state of matter.
• You are participating in a group shower among strangers so long as somebody else is wearing trunks too, because it's weird to be the only person wearing clothes, unless you're wearing a Randy Moss jersey backwards in Nelly's "Tip Drill" video.
• You are in Nelly's "Tip Drill" video, because literally anything is OK there.
• You are traveling to or from a place where people or other animals swim or do other activities.
• You have forgotten you put on swim trunks while expecting to go swimming but got sidetracked and did other activities on purpose ... or not.

• You own swim trunks.
• You have established a mine near one of your cities on a coastal tile that contains swim trunks resources (+1 happiness, +1 culture, -1 production, tradeable luxury) or have traded gold or military agreements or what have you with a civilization that has done so.
• You woke up like this (wearing swim trunks).
• You believe property is theft, sure, but you have swim trunks within range of yourself that nobody else is using right now, man.
• You have borrowed swim trunks under fair terms or terms that are unfair (in which case you used bargaining power to your advantage, and that's just the way the universe works, shorts and otherwise. You can't help it that killer whales eat seals and all that) and either agree to give them back or have a rent-to-own arrangement signed by a lawyer or a notary public -- whatever that is, or uh, the ombudsman at the, you know, bursar's office, or a handshake agreement, mental synergy or other sort of acknowledgment.

Not-so-shorts: This includes capri "pants," 1800s baseball pantaloons, 1990s Michigan Wolverines basketball shorts, and so forth. The thing you should know about these shorts is that they are pretty long, relatively.

Skorts: Kind of like skirts. See skirts guide while wearing skorts or other clothes or no clothes.

Formal shorts: These certainly exist, and not just for Bermudians or World War II officers in North Africa. But you should only wear them if you are from any other Atlantic Ocean island or other country, or are an officer in any other war or have any other job or no job.

Cargo shorts: Shorts with more pockets. Wear them if you need or think you might need more pockets or like fabric or don't have anything else you would rather wear at this moment in history.

Verge Video: These shorts will help improve your workouts

Thanks for all the great fashion advice. I didn't realize there were so many rules. I know a lot more about all the times it's OK -- and not OK -- to wear shorts. But I want a simple fashion flow chart that I can show all my friends when they have fashion questions about shorts and ask me, since they know I know more than most people about fashion rules. Do you have an interactive flow chart? Will you be my hero?

Yes. Sort of. There used to be one right here, but then it broke.