Walk shorts have recently attained status as New Zealand kiwiana. Walk shorts were polyester dress shorts popular amongst New Zealand's male public servants from the 1970s, and almost became an unofficial public service uniform teamed with knee socks, sandals, and a woollen cardigan. Walk shorts are a symbol of a particularly bureaucratic era of New Zealand's public service and a paternalistic government led by Robert David ("Rob") Muldoon.
Walk shorts cannot be accurately described without appropriate photographic aids and a contemporary account. However, a recent "retro" advertising campaign for Lemon & Paeroa uses the status of the walk short (in the form of "stubbies") to appeal to a new generation of New Zealand consumers.
Famous quotes containing the words walk and/or shorts:
“The figures of the past go cloaked.
They walk in mist and rain and snow
And go, go slowly, but they go.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“I don’t want to smoke cigars or go to stag parties, wear jockey shorts or pick up the check.”
—Shelley Winters (b. 1922)