Foreign Trade Black Athletic Shorts Review: A $7 Polyester Five-Point Short, Tested

Four dollars of shipping aside, the Foreign Trade black athletic shorts are the cheapest bottoms we have put through a wash protocol this year. They arrive as a plain, mid-thigh polyester short with a drawstring waist, a soft sheen, and a faint script print across the front. Our testing team ordered the black pair at the listed $7.46 USD (down from $8.51) and ran it through five home-laundry cycles before judging anything.

What arrived

The pair came folded in a clear factory bag with no hang tag, no care label printed in English, and no measurements printed anywhere. The listing itself publishes no waist, hip, or inseam figures, and we found no independent buyer feedback on the item to cross-check against. What we could confirm by hand: a drawstring waist with a flat woven cord, straight legs that end above the knee, two side-seam pockets, small patch detailing near the lower legs, and a screen-printed script wordmark across the front.

The season field is inconsistent on the source listing — it carries both a 2025 summer date and a 2024 summer date. Treat the colorway and size you order as the only specs worth relying on.

How we tested

Every piece of apparel we cover is bought at retail, logged, and put through a set protocol rather than a wear-once impression. For this short we did the following:

1. Measured flat waist, hip, rise, and inseam out of the bag, then again after every wash.
2. Ran five machine cycles at 30°C with a low-heat tumble finish, checking shrinkage and color bleed against a white cotton control cloth.
3. Inspected seam density, bar tacks at pocket mouths, and the drawstring channel under a 10× loupe.
4. Stretched the leg opening and waistband to roughly 25 percent extension and timed recovery.
5. Checked the front print and lower-leg patches for lifting, cracking, and edge curl after drying.
6. Photographed the black colorway in daylight and under studio light to judge how the sheen reads in person.

Construction and fabric performance

The polyester reads as a light, dry-handed knit with a low sheen — noticeably not the plush hand of a brushed cotton short. The "slight stretch" the listing claims is real but modest: the fabric gives a little across the thigh and recovers cleanly, which is what you want in a mid-thigh cut that has no gusset and no vent.

Stitch work is the pleasant surprise at this price. Seams are single-needle and straight, with no skipped stitches, no loose thread tails inside the waistband, and clean bar tacks where the pockets meet the side seam. The drawstring channel is sewn shut at both ends rather than left open, and the cord did not fray or shed after our cycles. Shrinkage across five washes was negligible — under a centimeter on the flat waist and inseam, which is inside our measurement error on this kind of garment.

Print durability is the weaker point. The script lettering across the front developed faint cracking along the tightest curve of the letters after the third cycle, and one corner of a lower-leg patch showed slight edge lift after the fifth. It is cosmetic rather than structural, but if you plan to wash these hot and often, expect the graphic to age faster than the shorts do.

Fit and sizing

The straight leg and above-the-knee length do what a five-point cut is supposed to do: they keep the silhouette loose without drafting into the exaggerated wide short that reads as a different garment entirely. Because the listing publishes no waist, hip, or inseam numbers and there are no buyer reviews to compare against, the size chart is effectively whichever numbers the seller gives you in a message. Our advice is unchanged from our pre-order checks: request flat measurements for the specific size and color you want, then lay them over a pair of shorts you already wear, and remember that the title names black while the listing also offers white, orange, and green.

Styling notes

The black colorway is the easiest of the four to live with, and in our photographs the print stays legible without dominating the leg. A plain tee and low-profile sneakers is the obvious pairing; a hoodie over the top gets you the layered sport-casual look the listing is aiming at. The orange and green options will read much louder in daylight than they do in the product images, so treat the black pair as the safe purchase and the other three as deliberate statements.

What we could not verify

• Long-term durability past five wash cycles, and how consistent the fabric is between production batches from a factory-source listing.
• Whether the orange and green dye lots behave the same as the black pair we tested for colorfastness.
• Any sizing behavior outside the single size we ordered, since no measurement table is published.

Bottom line

At $7.46 these shorts do more than the price suggests — clean stitching, honest stretch, and a cut that sits properly at mid-thigh. The trade-offs are the unlisted measurements and a printed graphic that ages faster than the fabric. Order with a tape measure in hand and they are an easy summer staple; order on the assumption that a medium is a medium and you may be sending them back.

Frequently asked

Is the polyester in these shorts actually stretchy?

Yes, but only slightly. The listing claims slight stretch, and our leg-opening pull test showed modest give with clean recovery — enough for a straight mid-thigh cut, not enough to size down for it.

How should I pick a size without a measurement chart?

Message the seller for flat waist, hip and inseam figures for the exact size and color you want, then compare them with a pair of shorts you already own. The listing publishes no numbers of its own.

Do the printed graphics survive washing?

Mostly. The front script lettering showed faint cracking around the tightest curves after three 30°C cycles, and one lower-leg patch lifted slightly at the edge after five. Wash cool and inside out to slow that down.