Shorts are a tough area to review here, because shorts by very nature are performant for their use and really adding anything more on top of them has a lower net effect that it might in something like pants. But, these shorts caught my eye because a lot of the summer I spend hanging out after work in basketball/workout shorts and while those work fine, they don’t look great.

With that in mind, I snagged these Rhythm shorts to see how they faired as a good looking, casual short.

Material

As the name suggests the main performance attribute is linen and in this case: 45% cotton, 55% linen. The cotton is there to soften the material to the touch and add some more structure. Because of that the hand feel is very much linen with slightly less scratch to it. And a nice benefit here is that while these shorts have some rumple like pure linen does, they have far less and end up being a little less wrinkly.

Overall the material is really nice feeling, both to the touch and while wearing — while still looking pretty sharp.

Fit & Style

These are casual lounging shorts — I think you could say they are beach-eque. But to me they feel like ‘drinks by the pool’. So the style is casual but has enough structure and treatment that they are like a linen button up: casual but not sloppy.

As for fit they run slightly small. I ordered the Large and I feel like I would not want to have them any smaller. The material is loose fitting as well, which adds to the naturally loose/drapey style overall.

No real complaints here, I wouldn’t really wear them out to a dinner. But I have no worries about being social in them near pools, beaches, or otherwise relaxed settings like that.

Performance

As I stated at the beginning these are nearly impossible to evaluate on a pure performance basis. They are shorts, and they are lightweight shorts so by nature they dry quickly. They are also 7” inseam so they don’t restrict your leg and are cut loose so they further don’t restrict.

There is linen, but not a ton. They dry faster than most shorts, but not so fast that there’s anything to write home about. And the waist is elastic which is comfortable and that’s the nature of that.

The pockets are a standout feature, because unlike all my basketball shorts, stuff stays in these pockets. Which is awesome.

From a performancestand point they are comfortable and that’s about all I can say.

The one big negative for me is that the material has developed those orange bleach spots in areas — even though they have never seen bleach and only washed with like colors and hung to dry. I am not sure if this was a fluke, or something to expect.

Overall

For $50 I don’t know that these are worth it, at something closer to $40 I think they would be a much better item to recommend. I do like them, but $50 seems like a high price point for something with pretty low performance which would be hard to find a ton of uses for.

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