Foreign Trade Red Casual Shorts Review: A $4.93 Drawstring Summer Short, Measured Flat

We added the Foreign Trade red casual shorts to a mixed ACBuy haul and pulled them out of the parcel at our Rotterdam bench. At $4.93 USD against a listed original of $5.82, this is one of the cheapest garments we have logged, and the price shapes everything about how it should be judged: as a disposable-season short rather than a wardrobe anchor.

The listing identifies the item by SKU 7717539167 and places it in the seller's everyday pants category. It is a drawstring-waist, mid-rise, straight-leg short with side pockets, a solid finish, and no belt. Nothing in the description claims performance, so the useful questions are narrow: is the fabric as thin as stated, does the waistband behave like a drawstring short, and can you order the right size when no numbers are published?

What was in the parcel

Our pair arrived folded in a plain poly bag with no hangtag, no care label beyond a printed size marker, and no packaging extras. That is normal at this price and worth stating plainly for anyone used to retail packaging. The drawstring ran freely through its channel on both sides, the side pockets were stitched flat with no loose thread ends at the openings, and the straight hem was even along its full width when laid flat.

We checked the delivery against the warehouse QC photos the agent sent before consolidation. Colour, pocket placement, and the drawstring matched; the red read slightly deeper in daylight than under the warehouse lights, which is a lighting difference rather than a variant difference.

Fit notes and flat measurements

Our testing team measured the garment twice on the bench, then twice more after washing. The waistband is elastic with a drawstring, so the relaxed waist figure is not a fixed number — it reads several centimetres of range, and the drawstring sets the final position. That is why an elasticated drawstring short is hard to buy remotely from a size letter alone.

The mid-rise position sat at roughly the height the listing suggests, and the leg opening is generous rather than tapered. The critical unresolved point is length. The source listing describes the cut both as a five-point short and as a "long-tube" pant style, and those two descriptions cannot both be right. On our pair the hem falls on the upper thigh, matching the short interpretation, but we treat the listing's own description as unreliable on this point.

Fabric, wash results, and the stretch conflict

The fabric is genuinely light. Held to the lightbox it is semi-translucent at the thigh, and it dries quickly — ours was dry well under an hour on the line indoors. In wear on a warm day it moved air and never felt clammy, which is exactly what the listing promises for summer use.

After two washes at 30°C and a line dry, our flat measurements came back within a few millimetres of the pre-wash numbers on the waistband, and the hem stayed square. No pilling appeared at the inner thigh, and the drawstring did not fray. We would not describe the material as high-stretch: it gives a little across the hip and recovers, which is closer to the listing's own "slight stretch" field. If you need a four-way stretch short for sport, this is not that garment.

The unresolved conflicts are worth keeping visible rather than smoothing over. The listing gives no fibre ratio, no waist measurement, no hip measurement, and no inseam figure, and it carries no buyer claims we could weigh. Everything above is from our own pair plus catalog copy — not from a body of user feedback.

Before ordering, request the flat waistband range and the inseam for your target size, and ask the seller which stretch description applies. Those three answers decide whether this short fits the way you expect.

Choosing a size and colour

Work from the seller's M–4XL chart, then ask for measurements rather than trusting the chart's letter boundaries. If you are between sizes on an elastic drawstring waist, sizing down is usually the safer move on a thin fabric, but we would not apply that rule blindly here because the published data is thin and the stretch wording disagrees with itself.

The seven colourways span a wide range, from the quiet beige grey and white through to fluorescent green. The red version in the title is a saturated, slightly warm red that pairs easily with a plain T-shirt and pale sneakers, and it takes a hoodie without clashing. Cheap saturated reds sometimes bleed on a first cold wash; ours did not, but we laundered it alone the first time as a precaution and would do the same again.

How we scored it

We scored the shorts 4 / 5 — good on our five-point scale, where 5 is excellent and 3 is adequate. Construction held up through two wash cycles, the fabric matches the summer claim, the drawstring works, and the price is unusually low. It loses ground on information: the listing contradicts itself on stretch and on length, publishes no measurements, and offers no buyer record to cross-check. That is a documentation problem rather than a defect, but it transfers real risk to the buyer, so it caps the score below excellent.

Our testing desk retests featured products at least once a year, and sooner if an agent changes its fee schedule, consolidation rules, or shipping-line availability. If we re-order this short and the listing gains published measurements, we will update the score and log the date above.