The Best Summer Pants for Men Will Give Your Shorts a Well-Deserved Break

The best summer pants for men make the season marginally more tolerable. Because summer is all fun and games until you’re an excruciatingly, uncomfortable sweaty mess. And while conventional summertime wisdom may tell you that shorts are the best option for letting the cool breeze buffet your quads, there is still a time and place for pants—so long as they’re lightweight, breathable, and durable enough to withstand a whole season of dog days.

Contemplate, if you will, the warm-weather occasions for which full-length pants are required. (There are many.) Also, when the sun is dead set on roasting every inch of your skin, imagine the sartorial sunscreen the right pair of long-legged knickers can bring to your legs. And that’s not to mention all the styling options they offer your wardrobe.

So with that in mind, we rounded up the best summer pants for men in the most unassailable styles and silhouettes of the season, all ready and raring to keep you comfortable with a heckuva lot more dignity than shorts. Can we guarantee you a swamp-free summer wearing exclusively pants? We can’t—our lawyers and the weatherman recommended against it—but the options below will get your pretty darn close.

The Best Summer Pants by Style

• Staff Favorites
• Summer Linen Pants
• Summer Dress Pants
• Summer Chinos
• Summer Drawstring Pants
• Summer Cargo Pants

Eager for intel on the “ID?”-eliciting pants GQ staffers are pining for right this very second? Here's a quartet of options culled from the collective Recommends shopping cart.

Of course, “summer” pants come in a variety of fabrics, but if keeping cool is your ultimate aim, linen should invariably be your fabric of choice. As a natural material (woven from the fibers of the flax plant), linen is breathable, airy, and can wick away moisture with the best of ‘em. In other words: It’s amenable to a whole mess of dog day’s activities. This season, a whole host of brands are offering pants in linen and linen-blends, so you certainly won’t want for variety.

While it’s easy to endorse the idea of wearing a pair of dress pants casually, we can’t say we feel the same way about wearing a pair of casual pants to a formal function. And it’s an unfortunate truth that many people don’t own a pair of dress pants suitable for warmer temperatures. Let's fix that, shall we?

Most chinos have the hardiness for multi-season wear, but they tend to peak in the summertime. Not only do they look great with classic summer staples—the whole spectrum of washed oxfords, polos, loafers, white sneakers, ribbed tanks, you get the point—but the right pair can handle nearly every dress code. And while there’s nothing wrong with a pair of slim chinos, the wider the leg, the cooler your legs will stay. It’s menswear science.

Drawstring pants—or, easy pants, as we like to call them—have become a year-round proposition, but they stand out for different reasons in each season. In winter, for instance, the forgiving waistband is much appreciated. In summer, however, they hit extremely hard. Maybe it’s because summer is when living is easy. Maybe it’s because it’s nice to leave the belt at home when the temps rise. Or perhaps it’s because lightweight fabrics are particularly amenable to a drawstring. Whatever the reason, it works.

There’s no denying cargo pants, especially in the summertime. They’re practical and easy to wear, whether you’re running errands or taking a relaxed approach to a dressier function. For summer, look for cargo pants done up in lightweight fabrics, with a pocket layout that can help render extra layers and accessories unnecessary.