Time was, you knew where you were with swimming trunks.
If you were a Village Person, a Dolce & Gabbana model or a PE teacher, you wore tight briefs. If you had athletic pretensions, you wore knee-length swimmers.
If you were anyone else, you wore board shorts.
Recently, however – and I blame Daniel Craig’s bathers in Casino Royale– things have changed.
Not only is your preferred style up for grabs as never before; the range to choose from is insane. Selfridges has 150 styles, Harrods upwards of 100, and one design of trunk from swimwear specialist Orlebar Brown comes in 36 possible colour combinations.
In the face of all that, what is the beach-fearing slob in early middle age to do? Should one take the blaring surf-printed dad-short or risk the more figure-hugging fit? It’s now possible, I am told, to wear shorts without looking like an over-cidered Notting Hill teenager holidaying in Rock; and the brief-wearer is not confined to Peter Stringfellow posing pouches in neon lime or glans purple. That should be good news – yet how it makes one long for the easy certainties of old.
Still, needs must. I girded my loins and took to the swimwear department in order to, er, gird my loins. Here’s what I found.
First, for men no less than women questions of engineering, as well as of style, enter into decisions about swimwear. One man’s budgie-smuggler is another man’s chicken-strangler.
Take the very brief briefs I tried from Gucci: minimalist, a bit retro, navy trimmed with a stylish battleship grey (£220). The issue with these was that if you yanked them high enough to cover the upper foliage, you also ran the risk of what my gym teacher used to call “non-nuclear fallout” below.
Robinson Les Bains check shorts
This is also an issue with the preppy 1960s-looking Robinson Les Bains range. A blue-and-white tartan Oxford number (£135) – as close as you can get to wearing the tablecloth from a dolls’ house in the pool – pushes the tightness a bit; and its Capri shorts (£130) are even more cosy.
The navy stripes might suit Daniel Craig. A wee number in stretchy royal blue (£140), also from their Capri line, did its best to sterilise me. And unless you have the abs of Christian Bale, you’re looking at Unsightly Overhang as well as nether bisection. They put two poppers at the waist because (I suspect) they knew the top one would be invisible. Approach with care.
Far roomier and more sensible – but leading the field in surf-pattern hideousness – are a pair of shorts by Etro in a lightweight fabric (£139). A mishmash of checks in fuchsia, magenta and two shades of green all overlaid with paisley-style swirly-whirly foliage and secured by a green neon lace, these are the visual equivalent of a vicious hangover in a cheap resort hotel.
Vilebrequin’s big surf shorts (£180), a similar shape, are a more soothing proposition: blue water flowers float on a blue-black background with fish picked out join-the-dot-style in white. Nothing to complain about, and with a waterproof pen you could entertain yourself joining the dots, too.
Chucs ‘Positano’ style
Equally inoffensive were some simple red board shorts by Chucs, detailed with a popper fly and cinched at the waist with a fat cream-coloured lace. “Stand Tall, Live Well, Give Freely, Explore Often” says the label, which is presumably something to do with the popper fly. They cost £145, so the motto must be impressing somebody. Chucs also does a similar thing – “Positano Long” (£145) – with a nice little coin pocket on the right hip and a red-and-black diamond pattern on cream background, which looks jolly and faintly nautical.
I don’t know if Dan Ward is a person or a direction, since he spells his name on his swimming trunks without a space in the middle and with the final “d” reversed. Anyway, his boxer-style shorts (one dark blue with a “logo check”, £135; the other orangey-red trimmed with white stripes round the left leg, £85) are in a very light and slippery fabric reminiscent of an 1980s shell suit – though I dare say they would dry quickly in the sun. His website tells me of his “resort wear”: “It outfits the fabric of our summer.” I the mangles language of it facepalm, so to speak. Onward and Danward.
Thom Browne stripe swim shorts (top) and Orlebar Brown ‘rattan chair’ pattern shorts
But let’s not be churlish. What did I like? Michael Bastian’s seersuckery pale blue bathing shorts with white trim (£155), coin pocket and a narrow vertical stripe alternating duck-egg and cyan, for one thing. Thom Browne’s slightly prankish shorts (£180), with their fat horizontal stripes of blue, orange and white and darling little sperm whales gleaming in the blue stripes when you get up close, for another.
And I very much liked the comparatively nonsense-free shorts of Orlebar Brown (£135). In comfortable fabrics, they have side-adjusters at the hips to tighten, and simple patterns. My favourite was – super-ingeniously – patterned to look exactly like a rattan chair ... so when you’ve sat down on a rattan chair after a swim and it’s done that thing to your bum, your trunks will be a brilliant visual pun. Or at least something for everyone else to talk about on holiday.
Top tips: The hat parade
Bernstock Speirs’ shirt brim Trilby (top) and Rag & Bone’s coarse weave natural straw
What bathing suit to wear is not the only male style choice when it comes to beach or pool wear: what you put on your head also matters (who knew there were so many sartorial decisions given how few clothes are involved?), writes David Hayes. And again, when it comes to hats, as with suits, the options are seemingly endless: Panama, pork pie, Trilby ... yes, the classic straw hat is giving the ubiquitous baseball cap a run for its money this summer.
Beach-worthy straw hats are everywhere; from Bernstock Speirs’ shirt brim Trilby (£110, pictured, top) to Rag & Bone’s coarse weave natural straw (£145, pictured, bottom), Paul Smith’s cream upturned brim style (£75) and Ralph Lauren’s Madras check-banded number (£65).
“I love to see men looking smart and preppy on the beach,” says Thelma Speirs, one half of British hat duo Bernstock Speirs. “Pastel-coloured shorts and a Panama Trilby work really well together. I like a small brim because it looks more contemporary and a downturned brim offers shade for the eyes.”
Sue Simpson, director of London company Lock & Co, which dates from 1676, says: “We have seen a real revival in hat-wearing in recent years, particularly from younger men, and especially in summer as men become more aware of the dangers of skin cancer.” Simpson also politely points out that a sizeable amount of its summer hat trade is for “gentlemen who are losing, or have lost, their hair”.
Key styles at Lock include the folder Panama (£225), which folds in to a handy travel tube, and the rockabilly pork pie hat (£149) from its Lock & Roll range aimed at younger customers. If you are a novice to the world of brim widths and crown heights, Lock also has a handy guide to sizing on its website.
How do you find which hat style will work best on the beach? “A taller person with broad shoulders will best suit a wider brim hat,” says Simpson. “Whereas a man who is not as tall with a slight build will look better in a narrow brimmed hat.”
Speirs is more pragmatic. “Finding a hat that suits you means trying them on,” she says. And for this summer’s coolest look? “Just imagine Paul Newman at one of Roddy McDowall’s famous beach parties in Malibu, in 1965, and you can’t go wrong.”