The Sarong Song: How a Pair of Women's Shorts Solved My "Skirt Problem"
Notes on Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Lauren, Loewe, Dries Van Noten, and men in skirts.
Maybe, like me, you’ve noticed that sarongs are in the air.
If I had to pinpoint it, it started back in January when I tweeted a 2001 image of Matthew McConaughey. Oh, you know the one: shaved head, leaning against a bar at some Hollywood party sporting a sarong, black T-shirt, and flip-flops (YES FLIP-FLOPS), looking offhandedly cool in the way celebrities did before stylists and social media swooped in and changed the game. Who even knows why it popped in my head in the doldrums of winter, but it was enough for me to seek out that photo on Getty and make public note of it. Cut to now, six months hence, and I’m still thinking about it (the image) and them (sarongs).
In fact, the presence of sarongs have only grown in my mind, thanks to a few small but important factors. There’s Julian Klausner, who showed them in bright, tropical prints wrapped around loose pants for his second banger of a menswear collection for Dries Van Noten. Then the ever prescient Rachel Tashjian Wise released her first-ever list of the “100 Most Opulent Things” to coincide with the 100th edition of her Opulent Tips newsletter, number 41 of which was a striking photo of Ralph Lauren I had never seen before. In it he’s strapping, tan, barefoot, grinning and wearing a wrapped sarong with a white safari shirt unbuttoned down to mid-stomach plus a beaded necklace. It’s a sight to behold.
And while not sarongs per se, they do feel somehow connected to those baggy Dior cargo shorts based off an old dress style at Jonathan Anderson’s debut, which felt in conversation with these draped Loewe pants from the spring/summer 2025 collection. Those pants that were so quixotic that they were featured on Chinese actor and dancer Wang Yibo in the brand’s seasonal campaign, and were subsequently seen on everyone from Bad Bunny in New York Mag to Romeo Beckham (lol) in Interview. I had even pitched the idea of me going to try them on and writing about it to multiple publications, and received radio silence. Hm!
As a general rule, I’m not much of an adventurous dresser, much more of a uniform guy, maybe (probably!) to a fault. I don’t dress to stick out, but rather to blend in, which I think is a byproduct of being a writer/reporter where the default is to generally avoid attention. As such, I’m not much of a skirt guy myself—much too “look at me.”
And yet a sarong seemed like my way in. It has a certain carefree vibe, a certain bohemian attitude. And because some type of sarong is commonly worn by men in regions ranging from Southeast Asia to Northern Africa and beyond, the style doesn’t necessarily read as “feminine” (whatever that means) but instead evoking a feeling of wanderlust and tropical ease. It could be especially useful in the dog days of summer where a dress or a skirt is just as much a tactic to stay cool as it is a fashion statement.
So I had big sarong dreams (delusions?) coming into these warmer months. Or, at very least, a hope that this was the season I could channel my inner McConaughey (alright, alright, alright). My first attempt in earnest to find one was admittedly lackluster — just a quick Etsy and eBay search that didn’t yield any exciting prospects. The colors were wrong and, funnily, I couldn’t get my mind around the “sizing”—everything looked too long (my goal was a mid-shin length). Nothing really sang to me, so I let it lie.
That all changed last week when I was perusing the COS sale for some drapey, wool pleated pants (a tale for another day). I did my usual scan of the women’s section—which, IMHO is often where the real gems are—and stumbled upon these short-skirt hybrids. We were back in the game. And while I didn’t initially intend to use this newsletter to post mirror outfit pics … hell, why not?
Anyway, here’s me in said shorts:
As you can see they’re a nice middle-ground between an actual sarong and a pair of long shorts, which have been my go-to length this year (though they may be dangerously close to culotte territory). They’re made of a really light, almost-crisp cotton poplin, and the belted-wrap detail means they’re adjustable, although the D-ring fastener easily gets pulled in a wonky angle, as you can see. I think they have a nice side-swept, breezy look. Adam, my boyfriend, said they’re “giving martial arts” though I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing?
The main point is, the wrap-front detail gave it the look and feel of a sarong without actually being one. In fact they reminded me of a 2015 Dries collection which featured heavily some skirt-over-pant looks. I mean, they kinda give McConaughey? Not no, right? Anyway, I’m keeping them.
As I was trying them on, they reminded me of a pair of Comme des Garcons shorts I bought last summer at United Apparel Liquidators, a designer discount chain that has a few locations around the south (I snagged these in Nashville). They’re similar (wide-legged, pleated) but come in a heavy, textured wool—a “winter short,” if you will. Whenever I wear them I do, indeed, feel like I’m wearing a big, swishy skirt.
I have taken the COS shorts out on midday walks with my dog, which is usually when I do a test run on items I feel on the fence about (the reasoning here is that I’m wearing them in public but it’s pretty sparse at that 12:00pm hour in Brooklyn Heights). And … I’m feeling good about them. I could see myself wearing them with a slim sweater in the fall too, maybe they’ve got some legs (heh) to them. So that’s it, that’s how these shorts actually made me feel like I’m wearing a sarong, which scratched an itch in my brain from January. Who knows, maybe I’ve unlocked a whole new side of myself! Maybe pleated skirt from Thom Browne is next. If so, you’ll be the first to know.
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I’m glad someone loved the Dries collection as much as I do!