Morning:
11°c
Have you seen them yet? The girls with no trousers? The girls who look like they started to get dressed but forgot what they were doing halfway through?
If you glance out of the window right now, chances are there might be one just passing by.
There she goes, legs up to the sky, eyes bright with mischief and trailing chaos in her wake as the city's builders, drivers and suits stop what they are doing to gaze rapturously at the sight of all that flesh.
Gallery: The latest look - supershorts
It's funny. However diaphanous or decorous the wardrobe options presented to us each summer, the compunction to bare all transcends the desire to look coolly feminine.
No matter that there are rails of maxi-dresses in the shops, or armfuls of peg trousers: this summer it's all about shorts.
When I say "shorts", I don't mean shorts as you and I know them. I don't mean those mid-thigh ones you dig out once a year before boarding the flight to Palma, wondering all the while if your Holiday Skin looks too orange and your cellulite is frightening the children.
The shorts I'm talking about are supershorts - so called because - duh - they are super-short.
In fact, as you will see from these photographs, so short are supershorts that at times it looks as though the wearer isn't wearing any at all.
Did the trend start in LA or on the catwalk? That is a matter of hot debate - once you've finished debating more pressing things like the Jackson children's custody battle, obviously.
In LA, girls have long gone around in tiny denim hotpants - they have the weather, after all - but summer 2009 has seen a new twist to the look, which can probably be traced from the catwalk.
For while wearing your tiny shorts with a mannish shirt (like Vanessa Hudgens) or an oversized hoodie (like Rihanna) is very LA, over in London, we prefer to do things less casually.
If you want to look truly on the money this summer, there is only one combo to go for, and while it's an unlikely one, like bacon and ice cream, it really works.
Team your shortest shorts with your longest jacket and, hey presto, you have that instant "Ooh, haven't I forgotten something?" look.
Ideally, the jacket should be so long that you can't see any shorts underneath at all.
Chloë Sevigny is a master of this look, as is Agyness Deyn. First shown on the catwalks at Chloe and Stella McCartney, this is not an ensemble best suited to the non-celebrity, unless your legs go up to your armpits.
An easier way to wear it is to choose a shorter jacket - still tailored, so that you get a nice juxtaposition between the formal jacket and the casual shorts - and layer a longer top underneath but still allowing a few inches of short to be visible (see Victoria Beckham or Kate Moss).
Smaller girls, such as Pixie Lott, can choose a jacket that is almost cropped, as a longer one would drown them.
But enough with the style tips. For most of us, this is a trend to look at from afar, not replicate.
In all those gorgeous legs, I see the ghost of my youth and the promise of a hot and lovely summer. In trousers.
Gallery: The latest look - supershorts
Reader views (6)
Didn't we call them hot pants in the seventies?
- Joan, London UK
It's like flip-flops, very few people can make them work.
Clothes are so cheap these days that people seem to buy them without any idea of what they look like in them ..
- Madmax, London, UK
Pixie Geldof, cover those legs up immediately - I have just thrown up my cornflakes.
Agnes, short shorts are definitely for you.
Beckers - no comment....
- Frank Bell, West London, UK
victoria beckham gives me the creeps she is anorexic looking she looks in pain poor soul,she looks like she could do with a good heart meal,
- Sara, WALES
Doesnt flatter any of them and Agnes is the only one with legs that should be hanging out of shorts. VB is way too old
- Amazonmothe, hasting
Why is Victoria Beckham always looking at her feet?
- John, Arezzo, Italy
