For more than a quarter-century now, man has labored to bring forth the prophecies as spelled out in our most cherished ancient text, Back To The Future Part II. Yet here we are midway through the year it foretold, and 2015 still hasn’t realized most of its dreams, besides 3-D rehashes of old movies. We’re still lying to ourselves about hoverboards and self-lacing shoes. Flying cars fueled by garbage exist only in Willie Nelson’s haziest fantasies. We’ve yet to rediscover the simple elegance of communicating by fax. Our pizzas remain woefully hydrated, etc.
But at last, we can take heart that at least one of those advancements has been figured out. Finally, we have the technology to turn our pants inside-out. The future is now.
Tomorrow begins with an Irishman named Ross O’Mullane, who’s taken to Kickstarter, the bar bet of the Internet, to launch Outties, a line of inside-out pants—just like Doc Brown tells us all the kids are wearing in 2015. O’Mullane says he got the idea after a recent viewing of Back To The Future Part II that also inspired him to quit his job as a marketing director, and focus all his energies on making pants that are inside-out. It’s a momentous decision that even now is rippling throughout time, as O’Mullane admits his wife was less than thrilled. And as his would-be ancestors slowly disappear from photographs that wil never be taken, O’Mullane says he’s putting everything into meeting his self-imposed deadline of October 21—Back To The Future Day. It’s the date when, like Marty McFly, we will all begin to write our own destinies. For our pants.
Of course, O’Mullane acknowledges that some early pioneers have already experimented with more primitive means of turning your pants inside-out. In the interest of science, he even tried some of them himself, only to discover that “it sucks—you can’t access the pockets, the fly or the belt loops.” So he and a tailor pal created pants that only appear to be inside out, while still retaining the many pants amenities you’ve become accustomed to.
All Outties come with standard pockets, hidden within the floppy, inside-out pockets that denote you as a fashionable denizen of the future, as well as an extra-large hip pocket that’s “perfect for a big phone/sporting almanac”—or for holding all the invites to model-strewn parties you’ll soon be getting. And rest assured that Outties are also “baggy and long,” which is what anyone looks for in pants, inside-out or no. Some things are timeless.
But not right-way-around pants, O’Mullane firmly believes. “Jeans have stayed pretty much the same way around for 150 years now, so I wanna start a revolution of people wearing their pants inside-out,” O’Mullane tells Hitfix. Still, he recognizes that some people might regard spending 88 euros on a pair of inside-out pants as less “revolution” than being incredibly wasteful and silly. People also laughed at Einstein, and he was a very smart dog.
“Look, I know it’s a zany idea. The world might just collectively grimace and move on to the next thing on their news feed when they see it,” O’Mullane says, proving he can predict the future after all.