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Tennis has whites. Cricket has whites. The sauna has your gym shorts.

Proper attire
for 190°

Linen shorts for the gym sauna, with a cotton liner and a hidden pocket for a cold pack.

The Short: ivory linen running shorts with an oxblood drawcord and piping, and a small woven crest at the left hem.
Prototype render. Final product may differ.

$68 first-batch price, with two cold packs. $54 without.

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Article I

The sauna finally has a dress code.

Sports and what you wear to play them
The sportThe dress code
TennisWhites
CricketWhites
SailingWhites
The saunaPreviously: The shorts you just ran in Now: Cool Whites

Finland doesn't need these. Finland sits there with nothing on. Your gym has a dress code, so most of us go in wearing the polyester we just sweated through. We think that's bad manners in a small room. So we drew a pair of shorts that does nothing but this.

Three reasons to wear them

The Short laid flat, front view, on pale paper.

Clean

Shorts that have never met a treadmill.

Change in the locker room. Go in clean. Come out, and leave the sweaty kit where it belongs. A pair kept only for the sauna solves most of the problem, and it costs less than the argument with the guy on the top bench.

Close view of the waistband and oxblood drawcord tied in a bow.

Soft

Linen outside. Cotton against you.

Most gym shorts are polyester. These are a washed linen shell, a cotton liner and a cotton drawcord, cut like a running short with a 5-inch inseam. Light, and pleasant to put on, which is more than can be said for the room.

Planned fibers, heaviest first: linen, cotton, wool, rubber, polyester. What each one does

The Short with a window cut in the front, showing the cotton liner, the pocket and a yellow cold pack half inside it.

Discreet

A concealed cold pocket. We don't discuss it at the club.

Inside, on the front of the liner, there's a pocket for a soft cold pack. Use it or leave it empty. From the outside it's designed to read as shorts from three feet away. No clips, no straps, nothing to explain in the locker room.

The Inspection

The Secretary has brought a monocle.

Skip the inspection

Inspection card The Short, size M

  1. Waistband
  2. Shell
  3. Cut
  4. Side splits
  5. Crest
  6. Liner
  7. Pocket

  1. Waistband

    A 1.25-inch covered elastic and a cotton drawcord in oxblood. It ties in a bow, like a civilized person's shoes.

  2. Shell

    Washed linen, around 130 to 200 g/m². Soft, light, and the reason you won't miss polyester.

  3. Cut

    A running short with a 5-inch inseam. You still have to walk past people to reach the door.

  4. Side splits

    Split at the hem and piped in oxblood, so the short sits when you do.

  5. Crest

    Woven at the left hem: a bench, a ladle, a thermometer, some laurels and a tennis ball. It's small. So is the room.

  6. Liner

    A cotton liner, cut like a brief. Under the shell, this is the part that's against your skin.

  7. Pocket

    On the front of the liner, behind fabric. From the outside in: cotton face, wool felt, reflective film, pack. The insulation faces the room, not you.

  8. Result

    Pack in, and it's designed to look like this: a pair of shorts. The Secretary has put away the monocle.

The pack

We can't tell you it helps. We can tell you it's cold.

A bare pack spends most of its cold on the room, which has plenty of its own problems. So the pocket is arranged differently: wool felt and a reflective film on the side facing the room, and only fabric on the side facing you.

It's built to take the edge off a long round. That's the entire claim. If you'd rather not bother, the short comes without packs and the pocket can stay empty.

Cross-section of the pocket. From the room inward: linen shell, cotton face, wool felt, reflective film, cold pack, cotton liner, you.
The pocket, in section. Not to scale.

Order of play

How it fits into a gym day.

  1. The night before

    Pack goes in the freezer, next to the peas.

  2. The gym bag

    Pack rides in the wool sleeve, or a towel if you'd rather. Do your workout in whatever you like. We won't look.

  3. The locker room

    Gym kit off, whites on, pack in, where it's nobody's business.

  4. The hot room

    Towel down. Sit. Take the pack out whenever you feel like it, and leave whenever you want to.

  5. Afterward

    Pack out. Wash the shorts cold, hang them dry. They wait for next time, smelling of nothing.

Minutes of the meeting

Objections from the floor.

Won't I look ridiculous?
You'll look like someone in linen shorts. That's the whole design brief: it reads as shorts from three feet away. The felt adds some thickness at the front, and the leg is cut loose to carry it. Anyone closer than three feet in a sauna has other questions to answer.
Why not wrap a pack in a towel?
You can. It's free and we respect it. A towel slips, and has to be explained. The pocket is built to hold the pack still, out of sight and off the bench. If your towel is working, keep your towel.
Why not cooling briefs under my own shorts?
That's the honest rival, and plenty of people do it. The case for ours: one garment with nothing to layer, linen and cotton on you, and a pair kept clean just for the sauna. If you already like your briefs and your shorts, you may not need us.
Why not just regular shorts?
Regular shorts are fine if they haven't been to the gym with you. They probably have. Keep any clean pair just for the sauna and you've solved most of this. We'd like that pair to be ours, because ours has a pocket and better manners.
Is it going to feel weird?
Cold in that particular spot is a strange first impression, yes. There's fabric between you and the pack, and it comes out in a second if you don't care for it. You can also buy the short and never put a pack in it. That's the $54 version.
What about the bench?
Sit on a towel. Always. That's Rule 1, whatever you're wearing, and it goes double for linen in this color. The pocket is designed to keep the pack, and any drips, off the bench.

The other questions

A printed card titled The Hot Room House Rules, beginning with Rule 0: Proceed accordingly.

The House Rules

Rule 0: Proceed accordingly.

Nobody ever told Americans how to behave in a sauna, so we wrote it down. Fifteen rules, on one card, free to print and tape by the door. No purchase required. Some of them are even useful.

Read the rules

The first batch

Two ways to have it.

With two cold packs

The short, plus two packs. One to wear, one to keep in the freezer.

$68 first-batch price

Choose this

Pocket empty

The same short with the same pocket, and no packs. For people who came for the linen.

$54 first-batch price

Choose this
  1. Pick a size and a setup. S to XL. The drawer will total it up.
  2. Leave your email. No card, no money. That holds your order.
  3. We write with a real date. Before any money moves, deposits open at $10, refundable any time before your order ships. Or ignore us. No hard feelings.

From the minutes

Resolved, by a committee of one.

  1. Linen outside, cotton against youCarried
  2. One garment, nothing to layerCarried
  3. The insulation faces the roomCarried
  4. The pack stays behind fabricCarried
  5. Designed to read as shorts at three feetCarried
  6. Never to be worn on a treadmillCarried
Portrait of Alex, the founder of Cool Whites, engraved in oxblood.
Alex, Honorary Secretary

From the Secretary's desk

I keep going in there. I'd like better shorts.

I fell for the sauna at University College Dublin, where I went every day after training. Now I go at a gym in Boulder, Colorado. American gyms expect you to wear something in there, and what most of us wear is what we just worked out in.

I'm a mechanical engineer, so I drafted a pattern. I took a bare frozen pack into the sauna and watched the room win, so I drew a better pocket. I also once held the unofficial burpee mile world record, so you may weigh my judgment accordingly.

I can't tell you this does anything except feel cold. I can tell you I'd rather be wearing it than what I wore last Tuesday.

Alex

More from the Secretary

Not ready? Get the minutes.

The real date when there is one, and the numbers when we publish them. A few emails, then you can decide.