The ShortsX

From ancient history to modern day – biography of a shorts

Back in 2015, when Skochy has been making clothes for five years and when YouTube celebrated their tenth anniversary and when we were all 5 years younger, the movement market that liked our baggies wanted something for the summer. Besides sea and sunscreen. So we thought:

– ‘How ‘bout a shorter version of pants?’

– ‘Like, shorts?’

– ‘Yeah, shorts.’

And, logically, it turned out to be shorts.

At that time, we had many colour options for our (baggy) Motion Pants, as well as lighter fabric for the summer version of them. Yet, they were still too warm for most of the summers. We decided the new shorts had to be light, comfy and, of course, durable.

Search for the material started (and it’s never an easy one when you’re in Serbia). Lots of driving around our country brought us to a light grey material with little black dots, and the cotton-polyester blend promised durability. To create an original cut was none of a problem, since our designer knew exactly how to make it perfect for all the possible (and impossible) leg moves. Different cut for boys and girls, of course.

We wanted our shorts to be useful. It was our priority. For being useful in ‘parkour’ kind of way, it had to be simple. So, two zipped pockets in front were just enough. You cannot possibly fly around the city (or jungle) with seven pockets full of stuff. Design wise, we really liked how the back pockets looked on the shorts, but it would probably be the least useful detail – finishing you roll on the keys in your back pocket is a painful no. However, we did like the little metal plate with imprinted ‘Skochypstiks’ writing. So we put in on the imitation of the back pocket. Nope, it didn’t work out – tracers worldwide managed to rip off every single one. So, two years later, we exchanged it for a canvas one.

From one batch of fabric you can make around 30 shorts. It seemed like the perfect amount for the beginning, so we got ourselves to work. Sewing – done. Testing in motion – done. Photoshoot – done. Website upload – done. Marketing – done. And it worked! Our first batch was sold out, we were super excited and people liked our new ShortsX! That X in the end came naturally, just like the X stitching came to our minds while we were designing the cut – it just belonged there, and we thought it should define the name of the shorts as well.

– Perfect, let’s make more ShortsXs!

– Um, nope, there is no more fabric of that kind.

– Can we import it maybe?

– Um, nope, there is no more fabric of that kind.

– Can we buy it anyhow?

– Nah, there’s no more fabric of that kind.

Typical Serbia. Living from day to day.

Some will conclude it was the consequence of the lack of stabile fabric supplies, but each year we introduced one more colour of our ShortsX. And so we had the dark grey in 2016, navy in 2017, black in 2018 (it was a special request from our friends from American Rendezvous) and light blue in 2019. 2020 brought us the light green ShortsX, even though it came a bit late due to the pandemic (which brought even worse fabric supplies, if that’s even possible).

Last year our ShortsX had a pretty unique design – an event called Art of Retreat (an amazing gathering of the ‘philosophers’ of the discipline, organized in Scotland) got a special delivery of ShortsX made in pure lamb’s wool. AND in traditional tartan design, so typical for Scottish. Again, both girls and boys cut.

Limited and branded series continued, so we made our ShortsX with many logos standing opposite to the winged S – Parkour Generations, Access Parkour, Quality Movement, Parkour Wave, Parkour Rizai, Lotzen ADD, Movers Mindset, Jump Sqaut, Open Move, Armageddon and many others. Speaking of limited series, we couldn’t help but notice that Jujimufu is rocking in our ShortsX, as well as our Motion Pants. This led to him having his branded pair of ShortsX with ‘Jujimufu’ embroidery. Frankly, nobody has ever made such extreme moves in our gear, at least not yet!

We may be small and they may be messing around with us with fabric supplies, but our ShortsX is stitched together with pure passion for movement. And thanks to you, people in motion who have recognized the same values we all share, our little shorts came to see many continents and jump many lands, from Californian West Coast to New Zealand (headed east, not crossing the Pacific). Thank you for being so awesome partners in motion! Our hearts are full and we are looking forward to all the future adventures with you.