If you suffer from sporadic and non-committal bouts of severe paranoia about the NSA, you can stop putting your phone in the freezer. This shirt is for you. Inspired by George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984, this new line of clothing from Australian company The Affair features a pocket that can take your phone---and thus, you---off the grid for select periods of time.
The Affair launched in 2007, when founder Zoltan Csaki wanted a creative outlet beyond his advertising job. He began designing graphic t-shirts. “It wasn’t particularly original, to be honest,” he says, but one in particular outsold the others by 10 to one. It was a graphic ode to Orwell’s 1984. Fast forward a few years, and Csaki is expanding the line into what he calls “menswear proper.” “It felt right to return to his world of 1984 for our inspiration of our first menswear collection,” he says of the surveillance-themed streetwear pieces, which have been dubbed 1984. Plus, “around the same time we had begun this process, Edward Snowden burst on the scene and all the pieces went into place.”
The social hierarchy of 1984 is broken into the workers, the outer party, and the intelligentsia; the clothing line has styles inspired by each fictional sect. The key feature, though, is the UnPocket: a snap-on, snap-off, canvas pouch woven with metal fabrics similar to those used in a Faraday cage. Like a Faraday cage, the UnPocket blocks cell, Wi-Fi, GPS, and RFID signals. It makes the person wearing it truly untrackable. Even turning your device off won't protect you from NSA snooping: If an attacker were to install malware, the phone could still be used as a surveillance device. “Short of using burner phones like on Breaking Bad or The Wire, you are fully available on the grid,” Csaki says. “But that’s not practical for most people. What the UnPocket does is give a fast and simple solution to location tracking.”
That said, if you’re honest-to-God hiding from the NSA, purchasing dark chambray premium streetwear won't solve your problems. But there’s still an array of use cases for non-Snowden types, ranging from dodging your spouse for an evening---perhaps to sneak off to a strip club (no comment on the company’s name)---to reasons of a more professional nature. Journalists, for instance, might need to go radio silent while interviewing sensitive sources.
Or perhaps, like Csaki, it's a philosophical choice: "If you believe in privacy it’s an everyday thing or a life choice." And by way of explaining why the UnPocket can be removed and used with other garments: "That belief doesn’t change if you wear out your clothes.” In that case, shopping the 1984 line is less practical, and more akin to shopping the fair trade collection of jewelry and knit hats at Whole Foods: You want to feel good about where your metaphorical chickens come from, and the philosophy of the product's maker is just as crucial as the aesthetics of the goods themselves.
The Affair is currently raising funds on Kickstarter, here.
