Why Shorts Might Be Coming to an Office Near You

American dress codes seem to grow more lenient by the day. Jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts are ubiquitous among so-called white-collar workers. The taboo against shorts in professional settings, however, has endured. Here in Washington, D.C., the hot, humid summer air feels like a dog’s breath in your face. But legions of male office workers are expected to keep their legs bundled up, even as their female co-workers shiver in the air-conditioned chill. When I exposed my knees at the office recently—I’d biked to work and hadn’t had a chance to change, I swear—I triggered a lively discussion on Slack. I was made to understand that shorts were for children.Why does the no-shorts rule cling so stubbornly to life, like trousers stuck to sweaty thighs in June? No one has a satisfying answer. It might be the most illogical fashion convention still standing. That means its days are probably numbered, and the glorious era of leg liberation is nigh.There was a time when shorts really were for little boys. In the late-Victorian period, British schools adopted short pants for the youngest male students. This practice eventually spilled over into non-Commonwealth countries. Steve Knorsch, the U.S. managing director for the men’s clothier Cad & the Dandy, told me that at his all-boys school in 1970s Belgium, he wore shorts as part of his uniform—along with knee-length socks, a blazer, and a tie—until he was old enough for pants.The association between shorts and children was still strong in 1932, when the diminutive English tennis star Bunny Austin decided he was done running around in “sweat-soaked trousers,” as he later put it, and debuted shorts at the U.S. National Championships. “With his white linen hat and his flannel shorts, the little English player looked like an A. A. Milne production,” The New York Times observed. Perhaps he did have an air of Christopher Robin about him, but Austin would go on to make two Wimbledon finals and introduce shorts to Centre Court. He lost t