I am not sure how Patagonia Baggies made it into the picture. If I had to guess I’d say that they wandered into Tradsville from a far away place called Fratagonia with their friends the stand-up short and the classic snap-t. Regardless of how they got here, they are here now.
I was never in a frat, but as a resident of Tradsville I love my 5″ Patagonia baggies. When summer gets into the swing of things and the heat is pumping these are the shorts that I reach for. They are super light, they come in great colors, and they dry pretty quick. I am a big fan of yellow and purple.
What do I wear them with you ask? Easy, anything and everything. I wear polo shirts, ocbds, broadcloth shirts, madras, and of course my grey-t’s. When it comes to footwork you can obviously wear sandals or sneakers, but camp mocs look great and I could see some beat up loafers working as well. In short, they are versatile.
Now on to the liner. This is what I get asked about the most. Do you leave the liner in or cut it out? My answer is that it depends. If you are going to use them to swim fairly often the answer is leave it in. If you don’t plan on using them to swim then remove the liner. I have some with and some without the liner. Don’t overthink it.
There you have it. The 5″ Patagonia baggie is the warm weather adventure short of trads. Whether you are going to the lake, beach, river, pool, hiking, or just hanging these shorts are perfect. They are my go to vacation short. To learn more about trad items with frat origins checkout Red Clay Soul’s classic Late 90’s-Early 00’s Fraternity Style post.
Bonus Pics
I am curious about the patches on the baggies – are they DIY job?
Hey, Sean. They are embroidered by a company called Petrified Goods. They no longer offer these probably due to legal issues.
Awesome. Love the posts, and I feel validated as a fellow 5 inch inseam short wearer, the baggier the better. As a man of short stature, they (baggy (short?) shorts) are summer essentials. I tend to prefer madras fabric and chino shorts, haven’t tried the Patagonia ones, but they look nice. And here I was thinking that yellow shorts wouldn’t be super versatile. Cheers.
Another excellent post! What size are those baggies? I’m similar height and build.
Thanks! They are size small.
I bought my first pair of Patagonia baggies this morning and funnily enough came to your site with the intent of searching through the archive to see if you’d written about them (I’ve seen on Instagram you own a few pairs). As luck would have it, you’ve very recently written about them!