Shorts that hold
a phone still

Pudolla started in 2019 with one pair of 5 inch running shorts and a problem everyone who runs with a phone knows: the phone bounces. The Pudolla studio moved the pocket to the hip, gave it a zip and cut the shell a touch longer at the back, and the bouncing stopped.

That pair is still on the running bench, in more colours than anyone planned. Every bench that came after it began the same way, with one thing that bothered us on a run, a trail or a fishing trip.

The studio is in Denver, and the people behind Pudolla run the paths along the South Platte on weekdays and drive into the mountains on weekends. Each new cut is worn by the team before it goes into the catalogue: a week on the trail, a week in the gym, two washes, and then the argument.

The argument is always the same one, about where a pocket ends and a seam begins. It is why the cargo shorts have their thigh pocket where a hand falls and not where the pattern had room.

What the pages tell you

• The inseam in inches on every pair of shorts, and the waist and inseam in inches on woven pants where the maker gives them.
• Whether there is a liner, how many pockets there are, and which of them zip.
• The sleeve on every shirt, whether it has a hood, and the fabric in percentages where the label states it.
• Every size of every colour on its own page with its own price, updated on a schedule, with no crossed-out figures.

What we leave to the maker

UPF 50+, quick-dry, water resistant, breathable: these are the maker's words for the fabric, and a page uses one only where the maker does. Where a description makes a claim nobody can check, the page repeats it under that label and adds nothing.

What a Pudolla piece is not

Not compression wear, not a wetsuit, not a rain shell unless the page says waterproof, and not a promise about your size. The size row on each page tells you which sizes exist in that colour, and the size guide tells you how to measure a pair you own. The rest is a run, a trail, or a Saturday on the water in a shirt that keeps the sun off your arms.

How the range is built

Eight benches, each with one job. The running bench is the oldest and the one the studio keeps arguing about, because a 3 inch and a 9 inch short are different garments in the same shell. The hiking bench came next, when the team wanted a pocket that lay flat on a descent. The sun bench came from a fishing trip and a burned forearm.

The sweatpants bench grew a tall line because two people in the studio are over six feet and had never owned sweatpants that reached the ankle. The pants, the tops, the swim shorts and the jackets fill in the rest of the day, and none of them got in without the week on the trail and the two washes.

Pudolla picks on this page are the pieces people rate, not the ones we would like you to see first. The bench pages list every colour that carries a price today, and the guides say the things a label leaves out.