Palm Angels Capri Shorts Review: A Loose Five-Point Short for Under $4

We ordered the Palm Angels Capri Shorts at retail through a shopping agent, logged the dispatch window, and photographed the parcel before opening it in the Portland workroom. The pair we tested is SKU 7720603668 in Cool K344 Blue-Black, a size 2XL. This is a cheap short — the listing sat at $3.73 against a $4.40 original price at the time of writing — so the useful question is not whether it rivals a boutique purchase, but whether it survives a summer of washing and still looks like the photograph.

What arrived

The parcel was light, as expected for a thin polyester short with no fleece lining, and the pair arrived folded with the drawstring already threaded through the mid-rise waistband. There was no separate belt in the bag, despite the specification field listing a waist belt; the closure is the drawstring itself, tied at the front. The allover illustrated face motif sits over a solid-colour base — in the Blue-Black option, that base reads as a deep near-black with a blue cast under our light box, not a flat jet black.

Material and construction

The shell is polyester with a wrinkle-free finish, and we could not get a lasting crease into it by hand. Seams on our pair were straight and even, with no splitting during handling or the first wash, and the straight hem on both legs sat level when the shorts were laid flat. What the fabric does not have is stretch, and that shapes everything about how the shorts fit — see below.

Wash testing: five cycles at 30 degrees

Every garment that comes through the workroom gets five wash cycles at 30 degrees, and these shorts ran the full sequence. We measured flat waist, outseam and leg opening before the first cycle and after each one, and checked the printed area for edge lift and colour movement. The waistband elastic and the drawstring both came through unchanged, and the printed motif showed no lifting at the edges on our pair. Colour movement was slight and easiest to see under the light box rather than in daylight — a small dulling in the printed area rather than a shift in the base colour.

Palm Angels care guidance for printed pieces is hand washing at low temperature and ironing inside out to protect the motif. We tested at machine 30 degrees to stress the print deliberately, and the print came through it — but hand washing is still the safer long-term habit if you want the face motif to stay sharp.

Fit, sizing and the length question

The brand describes its cut as deliberately loose and skatewear-derived, which matches what we handled: worn at our tester's usual letter size, the shorts sat baggy through the thigh with room to move. Sizing down tightens the leg without turning it into a slim cut. Because the fabric has no give at all, the mid-rise waist is held by the drawstring rather than by stretch in the material, so the tie does the work.

Buyer reports are genuinely split here. Some say their normal letter size fitted perfectly and recommend ordering true to size; others found the waist acceptable while the leg ran long, even in a five-point cut. That is a reasonable argument for asking your agent for flat measurements rather than trusting a size chart.

Colourway: read the option name, not the title

The listing title leans on "black shorts" phrasing for search purposes, but the two options actually offered are Cool K344 Yellow and Cool K344 Blue-Black. If you are ordering expecting a plain black short, confirm the variant image before you commit. QC posters on budget Palm Angels shorts have also questioned tone, with one noting the shade looked off compared with retail — though lighting in those photos is often the culprit.

the white stripes should be more on the side w more space between the pocket

That thread is about a different Palm Angels style, and the complaint is about placement details rather than the garment falling apart — overall construction and print quality in the same thread were generally called good. Treat it as a reminder to compare the print position against the listing image on arrival, not as a verdict on this SKU.

What $3.73 buys you — and what it does not

At this price the arithmetic is straightforward: you are buying a lightweight, wrinkle-free, print-forward summer short with a loose cut and a wide size run, and you are not buying verified brand-level quality control. Palm Angels reviews at brand level sit around 1.4 out of 5, with common complaints about quality for the price and unresponsive support — a fair caution, but one that applies to full-price retail rather than to a rep short costing less than a coffee.

The honest gaps are these: we cannot confirm how the colourway reads against an authentic pair side by side, and there is no stretch to fall back on if the waist measurement lands wrong. Both are solvable before you ship, not after.

How we would verify this order with an agent

1. Ask for the flat waist, outseam and leg opening in centimetres, not the letter size alone, and compare against a pair you already own.
2. Request a photo of the actual variant you are buying in daylight so the yellow or blue-black tone is confirmed off-camera flash.
3. Have the agent check print position on the leg relative to the pocket before the parcel leaves the warehouse.
4. Confirm at checkout that the drawstring is present and fully threaded, since the waist has no elastic give to compensate.