27 High-Waisted Summer Pants to Wear When You’re Tired of Shorts

I haven’t worn a pair of shorts in at least five years. I don’t have some deep-seated aversion toward them—in fact, I’m pretty into any article of clothing you can comfortably wear during super-hot, super-humid summer months. The thing is, shorts have never really worked for me.

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I have long legs. That’s not a humblebrag so much as it is an explanation of why my relationship with shorts is so damn fraught. Every time my friends and I would go shorts shopping in high school, I’d walk away empty-handed. Every pair of shorts I’d tried on made me look like I belonged in The Dukes of Hazzard, which isn’t exactly the vibe I was going for at age 15.

The one time I did commit to a pair of shorts, my friend’s grandmother commented that I seemed to “really like short shorts.” Interestingly, her granddaughter owned the same exact pair—they just fit her the way they were supposed to, rather than looking like a glorified pair of denim underwear (which is precisely how they looked on me).

I spent a few more years attempting to find a pair of shorts that worked for me, to no avail. Cuter pairs tended to be too short for me, and longer pairs tended to look hella frumpy. (I would rather abstain from shorts forever than hop aboard the Bermuda train—sorry not sorry.)

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By the time I went to college, I’d abandoned all hope of ever finding an appropriate pair of shorts. So I shifted my focus toward what I could wear instead. I soon realized lightweight pants are just as wonderful as shorts during the summer; they’re comfortable, breathable, and easy to move around in—plus, you don’t have to worry about pants blowing up in the wind or riding up as you walk, so you can rest assured knowing wardrobe malfunctions are out of the question.

This discovery was game-changing for me. I now had an easy way to stay comfortable during the summer, to prevent my thighs from rubbing against each other in the humidity and to dress for the office in a way that felt both stylish and practical.

Pants (usually high-waisted pants, just because they’re my favorite) were the one thing my summer wardrobe was missing, and once I’d discovered them, I couldn’t imagine going back to the days of poring over stores’ shorts collection in an effort to find a single pair that worked for me. Now, I own upwards of 10 pairs of summer pants, and I’m always looking for new ones to add to my collection.

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Here, you’ll find 27 pairs of delightful summer pants—all of which are high-waisted, super comfy, and incredibly cute—because everyone deserves at least one pair of high-waisted summer pants to carry them through the summer humidity in the most stylish, most comfortable way possible.