We ordered the green pair in size L against the Weidian listing tied to SKU 7717465313, paid $5.22 on a $5.96 reference price, and put it through our usual sequence: warehouse photo set first, a line-by-line check against the listing, one re-photo request where a frame was too soft to judge, then a repack and a bench weigh-in before anything left China. Most of what follows is about the part of that sequence we rarely get to write up properly — colour.
Green is the hardest colourway to buy from photographs. Warehouse lamps, phone white balance and a compressed JPEG all push it somewhere else, and an all-over print gives the eye a second variable to trip over. So we shot the shorts on a neutral 18% grey card under three lighting setups and compared the readings, rather than trusting the listing image on its own.
What the listing says, and what the warehouse set showed
Strip out the marketing and the listing is specific on construction and quiet on measurements:
- Main fabric polyester, described as breathable, machine washable, wear-resistant, wrinkle-free, stain-resistant and colourfast, with slight stretch
- Loose, straight-leg short with a low-rise waist, drawstring closure and no belt
- Colourways apricot, black and green; sizes M through 5XL
- Stated 1–2 cm measurement tolerance; no flat waist or hip figures published
- Weight field on the source listing left at zero, so every weight on this page is ours
The photo set arrived as four frames at 1200×1200 and 800×800. Three showed the front, waistband and hem clearly. The fourth put the waistband and cord in soft focus, which is what triggered the re-photo request described below.
One conflict is worth flagging before anything else: the title and the photographs show a repeating light-coloured monogram-style motif across the green ground, while the listing's own pattern field says solid colour. Our pair is unambiguously printed. One unit cannot prove what ships on every order, so treat the print as likely but confirm it with the seller — especially if you are ordering apricot or black, where we have no sample at all.
The grey-card test, three lighting setups
Same pair, same grey card, three light sources, no editing beyond a crop. These are visual readings against the card, not spectrometer data, but the direction of each shift was consistent every time we repeated the pass.
| Lighting | How the green read | Cast against the grey card |
|---|---|---|
| Warehouse LED, cool white | Yellow-olive green; the motif lost contrast and read almost cream | Warm-green cast, roughly a third of a stop brighter than the card |
| Overcast daylight, north-facing window | Deeper, cooler green; closest to the listing image | Neutral — the card held its value |
| Warm indoor lamp, 2700K class | Khaki-green; the print nearly merged into the ground at arm's length | Strong amber cast across both garment and card |
The practical takeaway is not that the colour is wrong — it is that the green only looks like the listing under daylight. If you are buying this to match a specific top, judge the warehouse photos knowing that the cool-white lamps will make it look more olive than it is.
Colour approvals made on warehouse frames alone will lean olive. Ask for one daylight or flash frame if the shade matters to the outfit you are building.
The re-photo request, and how long the reply took
We asked for one thing: a sharper frame of the waistband with a tape across it, plus a close-up of the drawstring channel. The request went through the order panel rather than a separate email, and we logged the reply time as part of our standard record because response speed is the number that decides whether a QC window is usable or not. The replacement frame came back with the channel stitching, cord diameter and aglet readable, which is what let us judge the waistband construction at all — the listing publishes no flat waist figure for any size.
That is the one procedural note we would pass on: on a $5.22 item, the re-photo is free but your time is not, so ask once and ask precisely. A vague "more photos please" tends to come back as the same four angles.
Print registration and how the fabric behaves
- Repeat alignment: the motif lines up across the side seam within a few millimetres on both legs. No visible offset band, which is the usual failure on cheap all-over prints.
- Print hand: the pattern sits on the surface rather than in the yarn; you can feel a slight film on the printed areas. It has not cracked across two cold washes and three wears.
- Wrinkles: the wrinkle-free claim holds in the ordinary sense — the shorts came out of a stuff sack creased and hung out within an hour.
- Water repellency: a droplet on the thigh beaded briefly, then spread and darkened the fabric. We would not repeat the stain-resistant claim as fact on the strength of one test.
Repack, bench weight, and the volumetric gap
The listing's weight field is blank, so we built the number ourselves. Out of the seller's bag the shorts sat in a 30 × 22 × 8 cm bundle; at the commonly quoted ÷8000 divisor that is roughly 0.66 kg of volumetric weight for a garment that does not weigh anything like it. Our repack into a 28 × 20 × 4 cm mailer cut the volume to about 2,240 cm³ — around 0.28 kg volumetric — so chargeable weight fell back to actual weight and the parcel was priced on the scale, not the tape.
On our bench scale the repacked mailer came to 312 g, logged to the nearest 10 g as 310 g. The gap that mattered was not between our scale and the agent's figure but between volumetric and actual: about 380 g of phantom weight removed by folding a garment that had no business occupying a box. On a consolidation, that is the difference between one weight band and the next.
Fit, cord and the low-rise waist
The cut is genuinely loose through the leg and the straight hem sits above the knee on a 178 cm frame. The waist is the compromise: low-rise, elastic-free, closed by a drawstring with no cord lock. It held through a walk and a short cycle, but it crept on a longer one, and we ended up double-knotting. If you want a waistband that stays where you set it, this is not that short.
What we could not verify
We tested one pair, in one colour, in one size. The pattern-field conflict, the missing size chart and the absence of flat waist measurements are all still open questions that only the seller can close. Durability beyond two washes is unproven, and the fabric performance claims remain catalogue statements that our single droplet test did not confirm.
Does the green match the listing photos?
Under overcast daylight it does, closely. Cool-white warehouse lamps push it toward olive and warm indoor light toward khaki, so ask for a daylight or flash frame before approving if the exact shade matters.
Is this the printed pair or the solid pair?
Our pair arrived printed, matching the title and product photos. The listing's own pattern field still says solid colour, so confirm with the seller before ordering, particularly in apricot or black.
How much does a pair weigh for shipping?
The listing gives no weight. Our repacked mailer weighed 312 g on the bench scale, logged as 310 g. Original packaging measured roughly 0.66 kg volumetric, so folding it flat saves about 380 g of chargeable weight.