Most shorts age badly and look it. The fabric goes limp, the pockets collapse, and by the third summer they’re fit for nothing. Ripstop solves that. The grid weave is built to resist tearing and hold its structure through actual use, which is why it moved from military kit to workwear and eventually into the kind of casual dressing that needs to keep up with a full day outdoors rather than just look good standing still.

What we’ve been paying attention to is fit and length. Ripstop can skew utilitarian in the wrong hands, so the options we’ve picked sit at a length that works on a real person rather than a mannequin, and in colourways that don’t require a specific shoe or a very specific holiday to pull off. Some are more trail ready. Some work just as well in a city on a hot weekend.

All of them will still look like themselves in three years. That’s the point.