Short Shorts

When Upper Merion school officials noticed an increase in racial tensions among students last year, they came up with a stylish solution: They banned clothing that made references to "ethnic prejudice and offensive language. " Some of the clothes "had really nasty remarks on them," said School Board President George Cox. "It may be offensive or intimidating to other kids. If you have a kid walking around with a swastika, it tends to intimidate the kids who are Jewish. " With an eye toward eliminating other distractions, the school board also outlawed hats; bandanas; "unsuitably" short, tight or transparent clothing; silver chains dangling from pants; and clothing that promotes tobacco and alcohol products, drugs, sex or violence.

SHORT SHORTS, a/k/a daisy dukes, are back in full force now that spring is here, with ladies sporting them with tights, boots and sneakers. This style hearkens back — and looks forward — to days when the weather is good and legs come out. n Contact Reuben Harley at BIGRUBE@streetgazing.com , follow him on twitter @BigRubeHarley or read his blog at streetgazing.com .

In her black high-heeled sandals, hip-hugging wide-leg pants and form-fitting long-sleeve sweater, Masterman High School ninth-grader Kelly Carlucci is no friend of the school's dress code. And now that the Board of Education has passed a mandatory districtwide code, there's one more enemy against her and her favorite summertime outfit, short shorts. "I hate it," Carlucci said yesterday. "It's so dumb. I don't think I distract anybody. " Many students gave the school board the thumbs-down for its unanimous vote Tuesday for a dress code.

Never enough pockets in your pants or shirts? Well, what if your underwear got into the act? That's what you get with Clever Travel Companions, lightweight T-shirts, tanks, undershorts, and even long johns with zippered pockets big enough to fit a passport, credit cards, and cash. Made of cotton and cotton/spandex blends in a range of patterns and solid colors, the bottoms all have two pockets, the tops, one. Men's boxers and unisex long johns have a two-button fly, women's short shorts do not. Since they are undergarments, they protect against pickpockets, although retrieving your ID at the security line could be awkward.

Men, it's time to let go of tight pants and short shorts. Ditch the extra-baggy jeans too - Philadelphia women don't like them. Two weeks ago, we polled about a dozen Center City guys on the types of women's fashion they liked and disliked. The Y-chromosome contingent told us they despised capri pants - especially when paired with empire-waist tops - and that they loved summer sundresses. Turnabout is fair play. So we asked Center City women the same question: What styles do men wear that you can't stand?

This summer - 20 years after they first took the world by storm - hot pants have risen again. And trailing those notorious short shorts on the fashion scene have been other 1970s styles. Are you prepared for platform shoes? Poorboy ribbed sweaters? Wild wigs? Oversize eyelashes? Synthetic shirts with oversize, pointed collars? Vinyl pants? Cuffed double-knit bell bottoms? Zip-front jackets? To-the-knee laced boots? It was inevitable that when 1960s-influenced garments made a reappearance in the 1980s, it wouldn't take long for the return of styles popular during the 1970s.

Ban the babyish organza dresses. Drop hemlines so they hover around the knee instead of the thigh. Prohibit the pairing of a long jacket, short shorts and spike heels. Get rid of the Isadora Duncan scarfs. Such harsh advice may help Italian designers get back on track after coming derailed at the spring ready-to-wear collections that ended here last week. Whatever possessed Italian designers to abandon their traditional tailored, elegant clothes for silly, ingenue creations that require a 5-foot, 10-inch body and a 12-year-old face?

While I'm away, readers give the advice. On overly sexualized clothing for girls: Why feel nervous about little girls' short-shorts and midriff tops? Would people similarly get nervous about a little boy playing outside in the summer with no shirt on? I know it's hard to raise kids in a world that isn't always safe for them. Does a little girl's clothing choice matter in that regard? How can you say that to a child without hurting her? "We don't want you to wear the short-shorts in fashion because we don't want you to attract the wrong kind of attention.

Don't look now, men, but the three-piece suit is back. And no, it doesn't look better than ever. It just looks old and tired, one more leftover from the '70s returning to the forefront. At the height of its popularity, of course, the three-piece suit was the only way to be truly dressed up. Depending on the fabric and cut, it was suitable for work as well as formal affairs. It was even considered dressy nightclub wear. I got my first three-piece suit in 1976. It was a brown gabardine outfit, which I wore to serve as master of ceremonies for my high school homecoming pageant.

If you like your dancing hard, fast and intense, then Koresh Dance Company is for you. Koresh's new program, Culture Shock, opened last night at Drexel's Mandell Theater, with a second performance tonight. Looking for Venus, one of two premieres, showed off this company's strengths. This six-part piece (choreographed by Artistic Director Ronen Koresh, as were all four works here) tackles the familiar domain of love and relationships, but does so with hardly a shred of sentimentality.

While I'm away, readers give the advice. On overly sexualized clothing for girls: Why feel nervous about little girls' short-shorts and midriff tops? Would people similarly get nervous about a little boy playing outside in the summer with no shirt on? I know it's hard to raise kids in a world that isn't always safe for them. Does a little girl's clothing choice matter in that regard? How can you say that to a child without hurting her? "We don't want you to wear the short-shorts in fashion because we don't want you to attract the wrong kind of attention.

Never enough pockets in your pants or shirts? Well, what if your underwear got into the act? That's what you get with Clever Travel Companions, lightweight T-shirts, tanks, undershorts, and even long johns with zippered pockets big enough to fit a passport, credit cards, and cash. Made of cotton and cotton/spandex blends in a range of patterns and solid colors, the bottoms all have two pockets, the tops, one. Men's boxers and unisex long johns have a two-button fly, women's short shorts do not. Since they are undergarments, they protect against pickpockets, although retrieving your ID at the security line could be awkward.

You bought red short shorts in April, confident this would be the summer of the tight tush. But here it is July 4th and your bum is still too bootylicious. Or maybe that trendy midriff tank doesn't look quite right because your tummy is too tubby. And then there is that high-cut bikini. Whew! One extra french fry and even a perfect bod can test that two-piece. Sometimes you can use fashion to camouflage imperfections — an A-line skirt for pear-shapes or illusion sleeves for saggy arms.

SHORT SHORTS, a/k/a daisy dukes, are back in full force now that spring is here, with ladies sporting them with tights, boots and sneakers. This style hearkens back — and looks forward — to days when the weather is good and legs come out. n Contact Reuben Harley at BIGRUBE@streetgazing.com , follow him on twitter @BigRubeHarley or read his blog at streetgazing.com .

It promised to be a battle, Monday's pairing of the bands Shabazz Palaces and !!! (pronounced chk-chk-chk) at the Blockley. The rhythmic pedigree of each act guaranteed it. And having Philadelphia's King Britt around to DJ the event guaranteed a fair and funky fight. Shabazz Palaces is an avant-hip-hop ensemble led by rapper/knob-twiddler Ishmael Butler (once known as "Butterfly" in the jazz-hopping, '90s alt-rap group Dig­able Planets, in which Britt was a touring member) and multi-instrumentalist Tendai "Baba" Maraire.

The Man Man men have been doing their chaotic, percussive, theatrical thing in Philly for long enough now to risk self-parody, but Saturday's sold-out homecoming show at Union Transfer was pure adrenaline rush. Over the course of four albums since 2004, Man Man has honed its style, becoming incrementally more melodic and more inclined to anchor a song in a chant or a hook, although that hook is often a barbed shout. "Mister Dagger meet Mister Back, inseparable, together at last," Ryan Kattner (aka Honus Honus)

DEAR ABBY : I'm a 15-year-old girl who has never been in trouble, but my mom treats me like I'm a criminal. She makes me go to church every Sunday. She won't help with my homework. She says, "I already did 10th grade. " I can't wear halter tops, short shorts, a bikini or much makeup. If I tell her it's the style, she says, "Modesty is always in style. " If I have a date with a new boy, she makes him come into the house and tell her what school he goes to. Then she makes him show her his driver's license and car registration.

NEW YORK - To a steady African beat and the sound of a pounding monsoon rain, the Edun label founded by U2's Bono and wife Ali Hewson presented a mix of breezy, delicate florals and edgy laser-cut silks studded with metal grommets at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Bright color - a trend during spring previews - lit up the runway Sunday in a dark, cavernous warehouse across from the Hudson River. The show included some hand dying in indigo using a technique from Mali on a flared jacket made of recycled hemp.

In olden pre-YouTube times, a girls' day at the mall ended with friends gathering in a bedroom to model and compare their treasures. These days, a teen-girl shopping trip is often followed by a "haul. " Shorthand for the homemade videos that detail the resulting spoils - from the skirt found on sale at Target to MAC's latest lip-gloss line - the vlogging trend that caught on about two years ago now results in more than 100,000 on YouTube. It's a natural outgrowth of the Internet oversharing that's second nature to this age group.

Shane Fisher thought he got a real bargain: a $202,000 three-story house in Lansdowne - $29,000 less than list price - that he could live in and that had two upper floors he could rent. Yet today, Fisher finds himself still scrambling to finance tens of thousands of dollars in unanticipated expenses, including $60,000 in renovation-cost overruns he says could have been avoided if settlement had not taken almost a year to complete. The house he put his deposit on 20 months ago was a short sale, in which the lender accepted less than the balance owed on the mortgage.