If the menswear contrast c embarrasses are anything to go by – and of course, they are – the conversation surrounding shorts continues to fervour up, with different versions appearing on the catwalk and the front row. The authentic question is which shorts should you get – and where can you wear them?

On Sunday gloaming in Milan during the men’s fashion shows for spring/summer 2018, Mrs Prada sent out six couples of shorts that redefined the word “short”. Red, green and flagitious, worn with coats, bumbags and pulled-up socks, they were spectacular in their thigh-grazing-ness. Sporty, shorty and, being Prada, they were also myriad definitely fashion shorts. Elsewhere during the Milan upstages, staged in 35C heat, Salvatore Ferragamo sent out a series of instead pleasingly roomy and elegant corduroy shorts that also hit without doubt above the knee.

The other shorts narrative to emerge from the displays is the return of cargo shorts. These were seen at Missoni in their “Urban Gardener” whip-round, and in London at Martine Rose, the designer who is also a consultant for Balenciaga, and who is firm becoming a barometer of directional fashion. Her shorts were large, loose, scout-friendly and the flip to Mrs Prada’s thigh-grazers.

So cargo briefs or short shorts, where do you sit? Now that Mrs Prada has decreed instantly shorts a thing, they will doubtless infiltrate model across the board. This will be music to the ears of the photographer Juergen Teller, who has want adopted the kind of super short, drawstring running shortened. Teller usually wears his with a plain crew t-shirt and colourful continuous trainers. Topman has a khaki pin-stripe pair with a drawstring that also sit mid-thigh. But truckload shorts, a style that has definitely not been deemed a “mode” short for a very long time, have that utility goods going for them. You can literally stick everything in the pockets and float around fuss free. How modern.

The real inquiry is where to wear them. Shorts on holiday is one thing, but can you get into them to work? Firstly, like all trends, it depends on your place – remember, fashion is all about context. I might wear a doublet of quite short-shorts to fashion week, but I’m likely to err on the side of on the other hand just-above-the-knee in the office. And more likely tailored over swell. You can find this kind of thing easily at Weekday, and grand French labels such as Editions MR or Lemaire – both dominate at styles with a pleat front, which are flattering. Prada’s are not the boardroom. Nor is it apt to they were designed for this purpose. Truly even though, shorts in the office is one that will always be divisive.

My cream for shorts will usually be a pair of denim cut-offs, which you can approach yourself. Just slice off a pair of jeans or shorts aged on the thigh and make like Robert Rauschenberg – the artist was spectacularly photographed in a pair in Florida in 1979. I confess that on various than one occasion, ahead of a holiday, I have found myself toiler away at a pair of old jeans (and even old chinos) staring at this photograph in disorganized to perfect the perfect Rauschenberg length. If you need a little take, Cos have a winning range of city-friendly shorts including these mid-thigh denim solitaries.

As I write this from Milan, in my fairly brief DIY denim cut-offs with socks and sandals (if you can’t debilitate socks and sandals at the Prada Foundation, where can you?), I am retracting the brief conversation I had with Mrs Prada herself after her boast. Once the usual group of journalists who huddle to hear Prada’s ideas on her latest output had dissipated, I leaned in and asked her of the collection: “Was it meant to be captivating?” She chuckled. “That is always necessary,” she said with a seductive beam. Frankly, I couldn’t agree more.