These Summer Pants Will Save You From the Swamp

It’s shorts season, sure, but finding the best summer pants for men may be equally as critical to locking in your warm-weather wardrobe—for all sorts of reasons. You can’t show up to work in cargos, for one. And your social calendar will inevitably fill up with cocktail hours, compulsory barbecues at your boss’s suburban palace, beach weddings, and all sorts of other moments when a naked calf would be out of place. And hey, maybe you’re one of those guys who just refuses to wear shorts. (We know you, we see you, we understand.)

Whatever the scenario, you do not need to power through 90 percent humidity in a pair of Levi’s 501s or your winter-weight chinos. We are in a Golden Age of summer pants, the product of a broader decade-long pants-renaissance in menswear. There are roomy linen trousers for everyone done with denim until October, a brave new world of drawstring options, pants literally designed for beach days, and enough designer summerweight trousers to generate fit pics without you even having to ask a friend to take them. Put a few pairs of our favorite summer pants in your closet, and you’ll be covered (literally) for anything that comes your way.

For more warm-weather style intel, check out the GQ Summer Shop.

The Best Summer Pants, According to GQ

Best Linen Summer Pants

Linen trousers—like their linen suit and linen shirt cousins—are dressed-up and comfortable all at once; a dash of Arnold Palmer or Alain Deleon. They should be the first thing you reach for when the temps are high but the dress code’s got no chill. We like them with a bit of extra room in the leg, both for the look and the extra airiness.