We ordered SKU 7720603668, weighed it on arrival and wore the five-point polyester short for 30 days. The wrinkle-free finish and drawstring waist held up; the colour field and flat measurements are what you should confirm with your agent first.
4.2 / 5
Editor verdict
A light, wrinkle-free five-point polyester short that costs less than a coffee and wears better than the price suggests. Docked mainly for a confusing colour listing and unverifiable print placement, not for construction.
| What works | Watch-outs |
|---|---|
|
|
Who it suits
Buyers who want a loose, non-stretch, solid-colour polyester short for hot weather, are happy to work through an agent, and will confirm colourway and flat waist and outseam measurements before shipping.
Who should skip
Anyone who needs verified colour accuracy or brand-level returns, prefers fabric with give, or wants a fitted cut. Also skip if the black-mentioned-in-search-text colourway is the whole reason you are buying.
Editor score 4.2 / 5
Our testing team ordered the Palm Angels Capri Shorts listed as SKU 7720603668 at $3.73, down from a $4.40 original list price, and the listing carried an in-stock status on scoring day. Sizes run M through 5XL. The parcel was photographed before opening, the garment was weighed and measured flat the same afternoon, and the piece then went into a 30-wear rotation through a Northern California summer — hand soap, sunscreen, car seats, laundry basket, the usual punishment.
What arrived, and what the tape measure said
The garment is a thin, non-stretch polyester short in a loose five-point (just-above-knee) cut, with a mid-rise elastic waist, a drawstring closure and a straight leg opening. The allover illustrated face motif sits on a solid base colour, and the print is the loudest thing about the piece — the silhouette underneath it is deliberately plain.
On the scale it came in lighter than a cotton-jersey short of comparable length, which is consistent with the thin summer-weight shell the listing describes. Flat-measured waist, inseam and hem opening matched each other front to back with no twisting at the side seams, and the drawstring moved freely through the channel without snagging. We logged the arrival weight, the flat measurements and the condition of the print before the first wear, because with budget printed pieces the second batch is never guaranteed to match the first.
Build, hand-feel and the wrinkle-free claim
The listing calls the material non-iron, and over 30 wears that held up reasonably: folded in a drawer overnight, the short came out wearable without a pass with an iron. What it is not is soft in the way a cotton jersey short is soft. There is no stretch in the fabric at all, so the waist adjustment comes entirely from the tie. If you are between sizes and rely on give in the material, that give is not here.
Stitching along the waistband, hem and drawstring channel was tidy on our unit, with no loose thread ends and no skipped runs. This is a simple garment, so there is not much that can go wrong — which is part of why the value argument works at this price.
The colour question, and why it matters
This is where the listing gets awkward, and we are not going to smooth it over. Some Palm Angels shorts listings carry "black" in their search wording, while the colour field on this one names Cool K344 Yellow and Cool K344 Blue-Black. Our delivered unit matched the colour field. Buyers on rep boards have posted QC photos of budget Palm Angels shorts questioning whether the shade and the stripe tone read correctly against retail, with confidence in those threads sitting around the level of a forum opinion rather than a measurement.
Treat the colourway as unverified until your agent sends you a photo of the exact unit they are holding, not the studio image set.
Print placement is the other recurring complaint in those threads — specifically whether stripes and logo elements sit correctly relative to the pocket. Our unit's print was centred and symmetrical, but a single unit cannot tell you what a different batch will do.
Fit, sizing and what the brand's own guidance says
Palm Angels cuts are described in the brand's sizing guides as loose and skatewear-rooted: your usual waist size gives the baggy look, and sizing down tightens it. That guidance is consistent across the third-party retailer descriptions our team checked, several of which also note a mid-rise, slightly loose shape in lightweight non-stretch fabric. Buyer reports split, though. Some wearers say their normal letter size fits perfectly; others find the leg runs longer than a five-point cut should, even when the waist is right.
Our unit sat where the brand guidance predicts — loose through the leg, true at the waist. Because the disagreement in buyer reports is about length rather than width, ask your shopping agent for flat waist and outseam measurements in centimetres before the parcel ships. That is a two-minute request and it is the difference between a wearable short and a return.
Thirty days, six washes, one care warning
We hand-washed at low temperature and dried in shade, which is the care instruction Palm Angels publishes for its printed pieces and which is aimed at stopping the motifs from fading. After six cycles the print showed a slight softening in the darkest areas of the face motif but no cracking or lifting, and the polyester base held its shape with no pilling at the seat. Sunscreen left a faint mark on one leg that washed out on the second attempt. Machine washing hot, which this short would probably survive once or twice, is not something we would repeat on a printed piece at this price point.
Where the price actually sits
| Reference point | Price recorded on scoring day | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| This listing, SKU 7720603668 | $3.73 (was $4.40) | Garment only; agent and international shipping are extra |
| Palm Angels logo shorts, Farfetch | $178 (down from $312) | Different style; free 30-day returns |
| Palm Angels graphic-print shorts, Editorialist | $449 | Different style; price-history page shows wide swings |
| Palm Angels brand-level customer reviews, Trustpilot | Roughly 1.4 / 5 | Complaints centre on quality for the price and slow support |
None of those retail entries is a like-for-like comparison — they are different Palm Angels styles, in different fabrics, sold with a returns infrastructure this listing does not have. But the gap tells you what you are buying: a garment, not a service. If the cut and colour turn out wrong, the recovery cost sits with you, not with a retailer. That is the real price of the $3.73.
Our verdict
At this price the arithmetic is hard to argue with. Three dollars and change buys a light, genuinely summer-appropriate short with a wrinkle-free finish, a working drawstring waist, tidy stitching and a size run that reaches 5XL — a range many far pricier shorts do not offer. What it does not buy is certainty about colour, and the listing's own black/yellow/blue-black inconsistency is exactly the kind of thing that turns a bargain into a drawer resident. We score it 4.2 out of 5: good construction and exceptional value, docked for colour documentation and for a print-placement risk that buyer threads flag and our single unit could not rule out.