The North Face and Others Are “Upgrading” Shorts In a Ridiculous Way

For years now, outdoor and active apparel brands have been quietly focused on transforming the humble short into the most capable garment on earth.

That evolution arguably started with the rise of so-called hybrid shorts.

They’re the kind designed to handle a morning swim, an afternoon hike and a reasonably decent dinner reservation afterward without forcing you to pack three separate outfits. For travelers and vacationers, especially, the new chameleon-like layer made plenty of sense and was an easy justification for carrying less stuff.

But apparently, this form of versatility alone was no longer enough, and at least some major players in the space have decided to take things a step further.

The path to “packable” shorts

Oakley

The outdoor industry has never exactly been known for resisting the urge to add “just one more feature.” Somewhere along the way, jackets gained hidden vents, backpacks sprouted enough straps to secure a kayak to your torso and hiking shoes started looking capable of surviving reentry from orbit.

Now, apparently, even shorts need a transformation sequence.

The phrase “packable shorts” isn’t actually new. Brands ranging from giants like Nike to enthusiast-focused outfitters like Gramicci and Quiksilver have used the term in various capacities for years.

But historically, “packable” was more of a stronger marketing synonym for the hybrid short. These shorts were just especially lightweight, softly structured and easy to toss into a duffel bag without worrying about wrinkles or creases.

Two brands leading the way

The North Face

The North Face’s two packable shorts offerings, as well as slightly older options like Oakley’s Transport Hybrd Packable Short, appear to be the next phase in the slow, confusing new sub-genre of men’s outdoor shorts that’s far more literal and gear-brained.

Packable shorts now aren’t just shorts that happen to travel well. They’re shorts that literally stuff into their own zippered pockets, collapsing into compact little pouches more commonly associated with technical shells or tiny camping accessories.

The North Face’s two takes on the subgenre feel especially informed by the world of ultralight outerwear, leaning heavily on technical nylon construction, zippered storage and quick-drying performance fabrics designed for hiking, travel and generally pretending your Saturday errands are part of a larger expedition.

Oakley’s larger and older lineup takes a similar approach, treating what feels like more swimwear-oriented silhouettes with the same engineering logic and proudly displaying it through clear visual clues, including via a dedicated tag with the word packable, as well as leaving the carrying loop visible on at least one version.

The North Face

Clearly, the aim here is to make shorts easier to carry on their own – since most pairs include a dedicated loop for carrying the stuffed bundle, or for stashing inside backpacks, sling bags, glove boxes or already-overcrowded carry-ons.

Whether anyone truly needed this capability for an item of clothing that already occupies roughly the same amount of space as a rolled-up burrito is another question entirely.

There’s also a slightly funny logic trap hiding inside the entire concept. Carrying around a compacted pair of packable shorts is easy enough, but the moment you actually switch into them, whatever non-packable pants or shorts you were previously wearing now need somewhere to go instead.

In other words, the feature might work best right up until the point you use it.

If your goal was aggressively optimizing space in the first place, suddenly needing room for a bulkier discarded pair of jeans, chinos or traditional shorts can quietly reintroduce the exact packing problem the packable pair was supposed to solve. Unless, of course, you were already carrying a bag large enough to stash those items anyway.

In fairness, there are situations where the feature makes legitimate sense. Tossing an emergency pair into a daypack for travel, beach trips, gym sessions or unpredictable weather is objectively convenient.

Still, it’s hard not to chuckle at how enthusiastically these outdoor brands have optimized one of the already easier items in your wardrobe to pack.

Where do things go from here?

Oakley

At the moment, the trajectory of the packable shorts movement feels a little hard to read.

Several of Oakley’s packable styles currently appear sold out, though whether that signals genuine demand or simply limited production runs is difficult to say.

Meanwhile, The North Face now offers multiple interpretations of the concept, suggesting at least some confidence that the idea has staying power beyond a one-off experiment.

That leaves the category in an interesting spot.

If you’re the type of person who gets irrationally excited about compression cubes, modular backpacks or jackets that disappear into neck pillows, self-packing shorts are almost impossible not to love on principle alone. They hit the same deeply satisfying part of the brain that enjoys multitools and furniture with hidden compartments.

Yet they are, objectively speaking, also very silly.

The North Face

The outdoor industry has long had a habit of enthusiastically engineering its own clichés into existence, often without much self-awareness about how absurd some of them can appear from the outside.

Shorts that transform into tiny nylon pouches feel almost like a parody of modern technical apparel culture — except they’re completely real, thoughtfully designed and being sold in earnest by some of the biggest names in the category.

The real test now is whether more brands jump aboard and turn self-stuffing shorts into a fully recognized category of summer technical apparel — or whether, for once, rare restraint prevails and this oddly specific design flourish quietly folds back into obscurity.

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