Let's get shorty

Oh, I love it when a new trend comes along. Most trends are repetitive or, at the very least, recycled. But mooching around central London in the heat the other day, I spied a spanking brand-new one. City shorts. Now, isn't that a snappy name? Zippy, businesslike and dynamic - we love it.

Y'know the thigh-skimming shorts that were all over the catwalks during the spring/summer shows?

The sort that look fabulous if you possess brown, buffed, supermodel legs? City shorts aren't them. City shorts fall to the knee, are uncluttered by turn-up or cargo pocket and come in sober colours like black, beige and navy (although Ralph Lauren did them in lemon).

Let's make no bones about it: shorts scare women. They remind us of the cottage cheese part of our thigh we'd prefer to forget. Let me take the fear away. City shorts are the least scary shorts in the shorts world (try saying that after a few glasses of Pinot and you'll come a cropper).

First, you should think of them not as shorts but as you would your favourite work skirt. City shorts have two big advantages over work skirts: you can take wide, man-like strides in them and you don't need to worry about flashing your pants when you cross your legs. Wear them with one of this season's light, unstructured jackets and you'll look smart enough for any meeting the boss might care to call.

On the catwalk, Roland Mouret showed some perfect examples in both black and white, while Nicole Farhi did a well-cut black pair for £169. It's important that your shorts fall to knee level or just above: any higher and they will stop looking like sensible workwear and begin to look like holiday shorts instead.

If you don't want to pay designer prices, then on the high street Zara has a black pair for £49, while Gap has them in beige and khaki for £29.50. You won't know how you lived without them, I swear.