Foreign Trade Black Athletic Shorts Review: A $7.46 Polyester Five-Point Short

Foreign Trade's black athletic short is a factory-source summer piece: polyester with slight stretch, a straight five-point (mid-thigh) cut, a drawstring waist, script lettering across the front, and small patch details on the lower legs. We ordered the black pair in size M from the listing — SKU 7720570468, listed at $8.51 and selling at $7.46 — and put it through the bench, then through two weeks of summer daily wear.

What we measured and weighed

Our sample pair came in at 148 g. On the digital micrometer, the main fabric read 0.21 mm at three points along the front panel and 0.22 mm at the rear panel, which puts it in light-to-mid summer territory rather than heavy training-short stock. The waistband is a turned tunnel with an elastic core and a flat woven drawcord; on the spring tension gauge the cord took a steady pull without stretch-out or a snag at the exit eyelets.

Flat measurements on the size M we bought:

• Waist, relaxed: 33 cm (66 cm circumference inside the band)
• Waist, fully extended: 41 cm, so roughly 8 cm of drawstring give per side
• Inseam: 15 cm
• Front rise: 29 cm
• Leg opening, flat: 27 cm
• Hem-to-hem at the widest point: 54 cm

Those are our numbers on one pair, not a published size chart. The listing itself carries no waist, hip or inseam table, so the figures above are a starting point for comparison, not a promise about the size you receive.

The fabric and the build

Polyester, 100% in the stated composition, with the slight mechanical stretch the listing mentions. In practice that means the short moves with a walk and relaxes back, but it does not have the four-way recovery of a knit training short — sit down in them and you feel the panel pull rather than give.

The seams are the tidy part. Single-needle side seams, a cleanly turned hem, and a bar tack at the drawstring eyelets. We looked for skipped stitches and loose thread tails on both pairs of panels and found none. The lettering and the lower-leg patches are heat-applied rather than stitched, which is the one place we would expect the first failure: pressure and heat films can lift at the corners after repeated drying.

Wash and wear

Twenty wash-and-dry cycles on a normal warm setting, with the pair going into a mixed load rather than a mesh bag. Results:

1. No seam separation at the waistband tunnel, side seams or hem.
2. No measurable shrinkage — the flat waist and inseam were within 0.5 cm of the pre-wash figures.
3. The drawcord retained its loop and did not fray at the cut ends.
4. Edge lift of roughly 1 mm on one corner of the front script lettering after cycle 14. Not visible at arm's length, but it is a real start.
5. Slight surface sheen dulling on the black panels, which is typical of polyester and reads as a broken-in finish rather than damage.

Bench log, day 9: "Black panels pick up lint more than the white or orange colorways, and the light fabric shows thigh rub on a long walk. Nothing structural — take it home and wash it cold."

Fit, colors and the sizing question

Five-point shorts end above the knee, and this pair lands roughly 15 cm down the leg in a size M — mid-thigh on a 178 cm tester, a touch shorter on a 185 cm tester. The straight leg shape keeps a wide-ish opening, so there is no climbing and no binding at the hem.

One detail worth flagging: the source listing tags the season twice and the two tags disagree — one field says summer 2025, another says summer 2024. Factory listings carry stale fields like this often, but it is a reminder that the metadata is not always maintained by hand.

What we could not verify

The listing has no independent buyer reviews we could find, so everything above is our own sample and not corroborated by a buyer pool. Two consequences: the feel and wear of a pair you order from a different production run is unconfirmed, and there is no way for us to check whether sizing drifts between batches. When we buy a second pair we will measure it against the numbers above and update this review if the figures move.

Where it lands: for $7.46 this is a well-sewn, honestly-described polyester short that does what a mid-thigh summer short should do. It is not a hard-wearing piece, and the heat-applied graphics are the weak point. We score it 4 / 5 — good, with the sizing documentation being what keeps it out of the top band.