Shorts may feel nice and breezy on your legs on a warm summer's day, but they're not so gentle on your wallet. In general, a pair of shorts isn't any cheaper than a pair of pants, despite one obviously using less fabric¹ than the other. So what gives?

 

在温暖的夏日，穿短裤感觉舒服又凉快，但是对你的钱包却不是那么友好。一般来说，一条短裤不会比长裤便宜到哪去，尽管用的布料明显更少。这是怎么回事呢？

 

It turns out clothing retailers² aren't trying to rip you off; they're just pricing shorts according to what it costs to produce them. Extra material does go into a full pair of pants but not as much as you may think. As Esquire explains, shorts that don't fall past your knees may contain just a fifth less fabric than ankle-length trousers. This is because most of the cloth in these items is sewn into the top half.

 

Those same details that end up accounting³ for most of the material -- flies, pockets, belt loops, waist bands -- also require the most human labor⁴ to make. This is where the true cost of a garment is determined⁵. The physical cotton in blue jeans accounts for just a small fraction of its price tag. Most of that money goes to pay the people stitching it together, and they put in roughly the same amount of time whether they're working on a pair of boot cut jeans or some Daisy Dukes.

 

This price trend crops up across the fashion spectrum⁶, but it's most apparent in pants and shorts. For example, short-sleeved shirts cost roughly the same as long-sleeved shirts, but complicated stitching in shirt cuffs⁷ that you don't see in pant legs can throw this dynamic off. There are also numerous invisible factors that make some shorts more expensive than nearly identical pairs, like where they were made, marketing⁸ costs, and the brand on the label. If that doesn't make spending $40 on something that covers just a sliver⁹ of leg any easier to swallow, maybe check to see what you have in your closet before going on your next shopping spree.

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