As the Times fashion editor, it is my job to suggest — sometimes — that people might try new things. Ask most British women to consider wearing shorts to the office, however, and you might think from the reaction that I had proposed they turn up in their underwear instead.
The anxiety seems to centre on being “too” something for shorts — old/short/big — or on looking “too” something in them as well: burly/practical/conspicuous. In my early twenties I wore a pair of denim shorts to my job at a different newspaper and saw via Facebook that a colleague had described them as “inappropriate”. I don’t think I’ve worn shorts anywhere but on holiday since — although let the record state, I did actually have
