Emergency Press Release: The Patagonia 5" Stand Up Short is Back
Good morning fellas,
Despite the fact that it’s currently 9ºF out, Spring/Summer 2025 releases are officially underway, and even though shorts are the last thing on my mind, we’re witnessing the return of a legend: The 5” Stand Up Short from Patagonia.
I got tipped off that this might happen and reported as such in my “Is It Worth It To Build Out a Uniform?“ article from a couple weeks back (you can find the report in the Minutiae section at the end). Also please feel free to submit your anonymous (or credited!) industry tips to me — maybe we can create Substack’s first tabloid lol.
This was some of the best news that I had heard all Winter. The Stand Up Short is a legendary flagship product of Patagonia’s (yes I’d put these way ahead of baggies, a product I’m really not fond of), and the 5” is the perfect length — they have a wide leg hole and the 7” inseam makes for a very billowy, slightly disproportionate look. It works well for some fits, but in my opinion shorts should be short.
The giant leghole is great for mobility and being active outside and whatnot, but the 7” inseam just makes it feel a little dumpy to me.
Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, Patagonia decided to discontinue the 5” inseam right as shorter men’s shorts took off in popularity, leaving a gaping hole in the market that other brands haven’t bothered (or are otherwise unable) to fill. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because we are BACK.
So what exactly makes these shorts so popular? I can think of 2 things:
They are pretty much bomb-proof, like “you can just have one pair of shorts for 20+ years and climb mountains in them and shit“ bomb proof. Pretty much a genuine BIFL product, which in our age of excess is pretty crazy.
They have the best back pockets in the biz. The shorts come with 2 ludicrously capacious velcro pockets on the back, that pretty much go all the way down to the hem, plus a smaller slash pocket to keep items like a wallet secure too. They were originally designed with climbing in mind, so it makes sense that you’d want all that storage space on your back. Turns out it’s just plain useful.
Really my only head-scratcher for these shorts is their choice to use velcro to secure the back pockets instead of something like a snap. Kinda makes me feel like a cargo shorts boomer any time I try to take something out of the back pocket.
Actually I have one more head-scratcher, but this is more brand-wide: Patagonia’s use of color is downright puzzling. They make some really strange color choices, and not even in the “we’re having fun because this is an outdoor company and it’s not that serious way,“ but more of an “our entire design team needs to be tested for colorblindness“ way. Who in their right mind is buying baby puke green shorts??
It turns out nobody is, because these are 50% off on their website right now.
At any rate, I have two pairs of the 7” inseams and a pair of the 5” “slab khaki“ shorts in the mail. Hoping to do a fit comparison and will most likely get the 7” shorts hemmed down. These are $89 shorts after all, so no need to go full consoomer brain and buy a bunch of 5” pairs too. Never thought I’d be taking shorts to the tailor, but I guess menswear brain is terminal.
Fun Fact: They’re called Stand Up Shorts because the first pair created by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard was so rigid that he could stand them up unassisted, just like that thing that the raw denim-heads do with their 32 oz. Iron Hearts or whatever
The perfectly broken-in ripped, torn, and thread bare shorts. 👌
Oh hell ya. I only wear Stand-ups. Monogamous stand-up short wearer since 2002