Pocket undies go over the top

Hold the phone: Boxers or briefs got complicated

The latest sign that underwear is the new outerwear: Some new men’s boxer briefs have pockets. Yes, underpants with pockets.

Why take time to put on pants if you are lounging around in your boxers and get a hankering for a latte or carry-out sandwich? That’s the impetus behind Pockies, boxer shorts with pockets that launched in the Netherlands in 2015 and have just made their way to the USA.

The trio of Dutch college students that created the Amsterdam-based startup was hanging around their house, and Michiel Dicker, now 27, said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if these boxer shorts had pockets” to hold his phone, for instance. Roomie Karel Bosman, 29, said they should make it so.

Along with co-founder Rob ten Hoove, 26, the guys used their savings to have 2,000 pairs of Pockies made and began selling them in March 2015. Their first batch sold out within three weeks.

Since then, they have grown their team to eight people and have sold more than 200,000 products, shipping throughout much of Europe. They created their own website, and friends did the modeling of the products.

“We’ve done everything on intuition business-wise,” Dicker told USA TODAY in an email interview. “So a couple of months back we decided to ship 12.000 pairs of Pockies to the U.S. because it felt good.”

Those made it to a Miami warehouse, which is now filling orders on a U.S. Pockies website. Most pairs cost $29.99.

The next step in clothing?

To some, Pockies might seem a solution in search of a problem. But what passes for casual wear continues to expand – or devolve, depending on your point of view.

It’s not just celebrities from Beyonce to Zendaya who have embraced loungewear – pajamas are a regular site on airplanes, in convenience stores and coffee shops. At least one high school, in Houston, has made rules to thwart students dressing too casually.

Still, something such as Pockies seems like the next step in clothing. Dicker describes Pockies as “a Swiss army knife in underwear world.”

In addition to being a one-layer home loungewear option, the 80% cotton-20% polyester Pockies can be used to stash your phone or keys when running out of the house, he says. Many customers in the Netherlands “wear Pockies as shorts in the summer,” he said. “We also have a lot of customers with diabetes who want to store their insulin pump discreetly.”

But what about the design flaw in some boxer shorts that could make your privates less than private? Pockies were created with fitted legs to prevent just that exposure, he says. “This way, it won’t crawl up and you don’t have to present your friends and family with your precious parts,” Dicker said in an earlier press release.

“We hated the fact that people in the room could see everything dangling about when we sat down,” he said.

Pockies may not have any impact on the boxers vs. briefs debate – although research suggests brief wearers have higher sperm counts – but if they catch on, the loungewear trend could gain legs. And if the design sounds appealing to the more pocket-deprived gender, women’s Pockies, already available overseas, are coming to the U.S. soon, too.

POCKIES Pockies were launched in the Netherlands in 2015 and have just made their way to the United States.

DAVID MEULENBELD FOR POCKIES Pockies have fitted legs to prevent exposure of “your precious parts,” the company says.