HUSSEIN
WHAT’S IT TO YA?
June 9, 2026
On a recent Instagram post for FuturePast Archive, a Toronto-based multimedia football environment spanning fashion, accessories, and community events, built by Hussein I, he wrote, “We crave the past not for what it possessed but how it made us feel.” The past, in this case, is late 1990s-to-early 2000s football and lifestyle, the heyday of bold risks, collective fashion, soulful designs, and sponsors that would be called whimsical compared to the crypto and gambling logos adorning everything football today.
Speaking to Hussein, the passion he has to revive the style of this era with FuturePast is crystal clear, even a day after his beloved Arsenal lost the Champions League final. When he talks about Nike’s iconic Total 90 emblem or Atlético Madrid’s mid-2000s Columbia Pictures partnership that saw new movie logos splayed across the candy cane stripes, his voice picks up a little bit. Since Hussein was 10, he’s been putting together kit designs like pieces in a Tetris game, mentally then physically, trying to find the combination to win a row: Netherlands’ legendary 1988 orange Ipswich pattern here, James Bond film logo there, all in an effort to craft kits and items that actually make you feel something because, as Hussein tells DARBY in an interview, “There’s no point in just making shit if you don’t get energy from something, or if you don't catch a vibe.”
It’s a labour of love, and a love that Hussein wants to be at the forefront of the rest of his life.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What got you into football and Arsenal?
Oh, it's my uncle. I think my first World Cup was France ‘98, so I saw Zidane and Henry doing their thing, and then Henry, eventually, went to Arsenal in, like, 2000. My uncle keeps having me into footy, he kind of just put me onto everything, like old Netherlands jerseys and old Nigeria jerseys, just random shit like that.
He put me on to Umbro when I was a kid, and certain pieces I just held on to him always. But yeah, he put me on to Henry when I was a kid, it was like Henry, Kanu, a bunch of other OGs, and then from there, I’ve been Arsenal for the rest of my life. Literally Arsenal, France, Netherlands. I was thinking about it the other day, I’m like, ‘Yo, it all tracks back to this one guy.’ I’m like, ‘Fuck, if he never introduced me to this shit, who knows who I’d be following at this point.’
I was always playing [soccer]. It was more like actually paying attention to what's going on, right? Even the fucking branding, you know that France ‘98 branding, the ball, they do the colourways for every team. So I had the brand pack that he gave me, and I always had that France branding, that fan pack, for like 20 years. My mom eventually got rid of it, but it was always in my life.
Speaking to Hussein, the passion he has to revive the style of this era with FuturePast is crystal clear, even a day after his beloved Arsenal lost the Champions League final. When he talks about Nike’s iconic Total 90 emblem or Atlético Madrid’s mid-2000s Columbia Pictures partnership that saw new movie logos splayed across the candy cane stripes, his voice picks up a little bit. Since Hussein was 10, he’s been putting together kit designs like pieces in a Tetris game, mentally then physically, trying to find the combination to win a row: Netherlands’ legendary 1988 orange Ipswich pattern here, James Bond film logo there, all in an effort to craft kits and items that actually make you feel something because, as Hussein tells DARBY in an interview, “There’s no point in just making shit if you don’t get energy from something, or if you don't catch a vibe.”
It’s a labour of love, and a love that Hussein wants to be at the forefront of the rest of his life.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What got you into football and Arsenal?
Oh, it's my uncle. I think my first World Cup was France ‘98, so I saw Zidane and Henry doing their thing, and then Henry, eventually, went to Arsenal in, like, 2000. My uncle keeps having me into footy, he kind of just put me onto everything, like old Netherlands jerseys and old Nigeria jerseys, just random shit like that.
He put me on to Umbro when I was a kid, and certain pieces I just held on to him always. But yeah, he put me on to Henry when I was a kid, it was like Henry, Kanu, a bunch of other OGs, and then from there, I’ve been Arsenal for the rest of my life. Literally Arsenal, France, Netherlands. I was thinking about it the other day, I’m like, ‘Yo, it all tracks back to this one guy.’ I’m like, ‘Fuck, if he never introduced me to this shit, who knows who I’d be following at this point.’
I was always playing [soccer]. It was more like actually paying attention to what's going on, right? Even the fucking branding, you know that France ‘98 branding, the ball, they do the colourways for every team. So I had the brand pack that he gave me, and I always had that France branding, that fan pack, for like 20 years. My mom eventually got rid of it, but it was always in my life.
Was that the first time you were thinking about fashion and putting these elements of sports design together?
Yeah, even dialling it back, because the whole reason I became a designer was because of sports design. Growing up, it was soccer and RC cars, but the RC cars that had—are you familiar with DTM racing? It’s German racing. Because they had the sponsors all over, like old school Mercedes and shit.
The Mercedes CLK-GTR, there’s this iconic silver car, and it has sponsors like D2 and Mobil One. Think like a Pirelli, or these really specific sponsors back in the 2000s that just, I don’t know, they just got through to everything. To this day, I still love that shit, and I’m like, ‘Yo, I remember my dad grabbing me that shit from the convenience store,’ it just so happened to be the car I fuck with, and then you start paying attention to branding, and then once you start watching the names, like the ad sponsors on like the side of the fields, you start looking at that shit, and then you start looking at the sponsors on the jerseys. Early Arsenal jerseys, it was Sega, it was Dreamcast. Really iconic shit that just stood out, and then you just start paying attention to it.
But then I started looking into baseball, basketball and hockey. Sports really influenced my whole design taste on display. I still pull colour theory from it, palettes, just everything ‘cause there’s so much lore, there'’s so much heritage, and there’s so much history to pull from. It all became a part of my personality eventually. The more I think about it the older I get, I keep tapping into that time period. I was like, 10, 13-14. Everything was sick to me back then. It’s still sick to me now.
Yeah, even dialling it back, because the whole reason I became a designer was because of sports design. Growing up, it was soccer and RC cars, but the RC cars that had—are you familiar with DTM racing? It’s German racing. Because they had the sponsors all over, like old school Mercedes and shit.
The Mercedes CLK-GTR, there’s this iconic silver car, and it has sponsors like D2 and Mobil One. Think like a Pirelli, or these really specific sponsors back in the 2000s that just, I don’t know, they just got through to everything. To this day, I still love that shit, and I’m like, ‘Yo, I remember my dad grabbing me that shit from the convenience store,’ it just so happened to be the car I fuck with, and then you start paying attention to branding, and then once you start watching the names, like the ad sponsors on like the side of the fields, you start looking at that shit, and then you start looking at the sponsors on the jerseys. Early Arsenal jerseys, it was Sega, it was Dreamcast. Really iconic shit that just stood out, and then you just start paying attention to it.
But then I started looking into baseball, basketball and hockey. Sports really influenced my whole design taste on display. I still pull colour theory from it, palettes, just everything ‘cause there’s so much lore, there'’s so much heritage, and there’s so much history to pull from. It all became a part of my personality eventually. The more I think about it the older I get, I keep tapping into that time period. I was like, 10, 13-14. Everything was sick to me back then. It’s still sick to me now.
You do a lot of different types of designs, from kits to coasters. What is your creative process like?
Yeah, so different aspects. For the jerseys, it was really just to make sponsors that feel better, and then put it on templates that I feel are timeless, are classic. The whole idea is paying homage to timeless design. Initially, it wasn’t supposed to be just soccer, it was supposed to be a little bit of everything. Just me, who I am, my personality as it is, it’s pop culture, it’s art, fashion, yada yada. But timeless design would be the thing that cut through everything. So then I was like, ‘Fuck it, let me just focus on soccer for now,’ but I can still pull in design aspects through the sponsors, through the aesthetics, through this little world-building thing I’ve been doing.
On my FuturePast page, there’s the 3D stuff I kind of do, or little warehouse irons and whatnot. I’m trying to build more into that. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Nigo from Bape’s warehouse archive, but that's my guy, that’s my influence in a certain sense. I’ve always thought of him, and it’s that would kind of be the scene, just a warehouse with all the shit that I love.
A warehouse in the middle, production studio in the back, a little footy pitch on the rooftop, I would do the whole thing, the whole fucking thing, and kind of just build it like that. I’d have all my influences, all the nostalgia, so all the cartoons, all the movies, all the media, books, whatever influenced me, be in that spot, and kind of influence everything else.
So when it comes to FuturePast, I just try to find different ways to make product based on that, just dumb shit, it could be keychains, it could be charms, it could be rugs, it could be a bandana, it could be like a stool covered in a collage of Zidane’s face or something. It could be dumb memorabilia, or it could be something wearable. It’s kind of how I’m feeling at the time. I haven’t gotten to a point where I’m pumping product out consistently, but that’s the goal, to be honest.
Yeah, so different aspects. For the jerseys, it was really just to make sponsors that feel better, and then put it on templates that I feel are timeless, are classic. The whole idea is paying homage to timeless design. Initially, it wasn’t supposed to be just soccer, it was supposed to be a little bit of everything. Just me, who I am, my personality as it is, it’s pop culture, it’s art, fashion, yada yada. But timeless design would be the thing that cut through everything. So then I was like, ‘Fuck it, let me just focus on soccer for now,’ but I can still pull in design aspects through the sponsors, through the aesthetics, through this little world-building thing I’ve been doing.
On my FuturePast page, there’s the 3D stuff I kind of do, or little warehouse irons and whatnot. I’m trying to build more into that. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Nigo from Bape’s warehouse archive, but that's my guy, that’s my influence in a certain sense. I’ve always thought of him, and it’s that would kind of be the scene, just a warehouse with all the shit that I love.
A warehouse in the middle, production studio in the back, a little footy pitch on the rooftop, I would do the whole thing, the whole fucking thing, and kind of just build it like that. I’d have all my influences, all the nostalgia, so all the cartoons, all the movies, all the media, books, whatever influenced me, be in that spot, and kind of influence everything else.
So when it comes to FuturePast, I just try to find different ways to make product based on that, just dumb shit, it could be keychains, it could be charms, it could be rugs, it could be a bandana, it could be like a stool covered in a collage of Zidane’s face or something. It could be dumb memorabilia, or it could be something wearable. It’s kind of how I’m feeling at the time. I haven’t gotten to a point where I’m pumping product out consistently, but that’s the goal, to be honest.
One thing I love about your designs is the different sponsors on the reworked kits, like Yves Saint-Laurent, a James Bond movie, there’s a Teen Titans Go sponsorship. How do those different cultural influences collide with soccer?
Sometimes I’ll just do it based on the eye test, like sometimes there’s a theme to it. The Teen Titans one, I’m like, ‘I like the way it looks: the colours make sense, the template is sick aesthetically, let’s go with it.’ And then I’ll make a custom badge or FuturePast badge, I’ll add my little sponsored branding on the arm sometimes.
But then I might grab a team USA jersey, and then I’ll put a Resident Evil sponsor on it. That was kind of thematic. You can kind of put two and two together, be like, ‘Yeah, there’s a little undertone here.’ I had an old Juventus jersey, it was a pink kit, and I put The Sopranos logo on it. So, like, Italian mafia makes sense, you know what I mean? Just little things that make sense.
It kind of depends. With Xbox coming back, I was gonna do a whole little Xbox capsule, all the old games, yada yada, all the branding. I’ll curate a little capsule, make it make sense, maybe find small black jerseys, or just find things to make it make sense, but it’s never really the same thing every single time.
One throughline in your catalogue of kits is the Total 90 logo and template from the 2002 World Cup. Tell me about Total 90’s influence on you, and that whole time period, because that would have been your second World Cup, you would have been totally into it by then.
Total 90 was kind of everywhere. That’s what I’m trying to say, they’ve never replicated that energy. Total 90, Joga Bonita, like that whole time period of media and marketing to, I guess you could say kids, or just the people, they’ve never replicated that. That shit was everywhere, bro. That symbol is almost bigger than Nike itself. Slapped out on anything.
There was a point where people had the turf shoes, even indoors, and like I do that now, and I’m like, ‘This feels great, I feel like a kid again, this is fantastic.’ I mean, it was such a normal part of life, you’ll go out and you’re probably gonna play soccer at one point, so you’re just ready to go, you’re just ready to play at any time, anywhere.
All the stars were sick back then, and the designs were crazy, they really blended. There’s never been a time where it was a full 360 of performance product, lifestyle product, the marketing being fantastic, you have superstars that are performing at the best they can. It’s never linked up perfectly like that. There’s always something lacking. But that era, brother, nothing sucked. Everything down from like socks to goalie gloves to like, a fucking turtleneck, a toque, everything was sick, bro. Every ad, incredible, the people they had access to, incredible—nah, man. I promise you, to this day I still look back, I always pull from that.
Sometimes I’ll just do it based on the eye test, like sometimes there’s a theme to it. The Teen Titans one, I’m like, ‘I like the way it looks: the colours make sense, the template is sick aesthetically, let’s go with it.’ And then I’ll make a custom badge or FuturePast badge, I’ll add my little sponsored branding on the arm sometimes.
But then I might grab a team USA jersey, and then I’ll put a Resident Evil sponsor on it. That was kind of thematic. You can kind of put two and two together, be like, ‘Yeah, there’s a little undertone here.’ I had an old Juventus jersey, it was a pink kit, and I put The Sopranos logo on it. So, like, Italian mafia makes sense, you know what I mean? Just little things that make sense.
It kind of depends. With Xbox coming back, I was gonna do a whole little Xbox capsule, all the old games, yada yada, all the branding. I’ll curate a little capsule, make it make sense, maybe find small black jerseys, or just find things to make it make sense, but it’s never really the same thing every single time.
One throughline in your catalogue of kits is the Total 90 logo and template from the 2002 World Cup. Tell me about Total 90’s influence on you, and that whole time period, because that would have been your second World Cup, you would have been totally into it by then.
Total 90 was kind of everywhere. That’s what I’m trying to say, they’ve never replicated that energy. Total 90, Joga Bonita, like that whole time period of media and marketing to, I guess you could say kids, or just the people, they’ve never replicated that. That shit was everywhere, bro. That symbol is almost bigger than Nike itself. Slapped out on anything.
There was a point where people had the turf shoes, even indoors, and like I do that now, and I’m like, ‘This feels great, I feel like a kid again, this is fantastic.’ I mean, it was such a normal part of life, you’ll go out and you’re probably gonna play soccer at one point, so you’re just ready to go, you’re just ready to play at any time, anywhere.
All the stars were sick back then, and the designs were crazy, they really blended. There’s never been a time where it was a full 360 of performance product, lifestyle product, the marketing being fantastic, you have superstars that are performing at the best they can. It’s never linked up perfectly like that. There’s always something lacking. But that era, brother, nothing sucked. Everything down from like socks to goalie gloves to like, a fucking turtleneck, a toque, everything was sick, bro. Every ad, incredible, the people they had access to, incredible—nah, man. I promise you, to this day I still look back, I always pull from that.
The Total 90 era does feel like a lightning in a bottle kind of thing.
Yeah. And like 2004, so many things came out at that time, design wise, movie wise, cinema. It was a weird little time period, but everybody just understood, and they were just on their shit, and everybody was just performing at the best they could. They were just so fucking creative at that point, bro. Recently, I found that the designers from back then, they all linked up recently and did something similar to a video podcast, and they were breaking down the design process, what happened, why it was the way it was, and it being because Nike was never really heavy into the [football] space, and they ended up bringing all these US designers and a bunch of British designers together, and they just approached it like no one’s ever approached it before.
They had to fight tooth and nail to even get the 90 placed on everything the way it was, bigger than Nike was. They were going back and forth, trying to convince Nike, literally the designers were like, ‘Yo, just trust us, this will work. This looks good, just trust us.’
You talked a bit about Bape being the model for FuturePast. What are your other ambitions with the brand?
I kind of just want to build a whole little ecosystem, like Saturdays Football, they’re based in New York. They kind of started as a weekly free pickup thing, and then they eventually got into vintage jersey selling, just straight up vintage jersey selling. All these spaces started by being heavy in the community, I like how they approached it. Now they just make their own product as well, alongside the vintage stuff, but I like that element.
I want a local team, I want to host tournaments, all in their own facility. I love the fact that around the GTA, they’re trying to open up more mini pitches, but I would want to bring that across the GTA eventually. Either through grants or personal business. It’d be to just build a bunch of community pitches, or hopefully get a facility.
I’m at a point in my life where soccer design for me, like, that’s it.
Photos: J’don Mcsween
Interview: Thomas Hewitt
Yeah. And like 2004, so many things came out at that time, design wise, movie wise, cinema. It was a weird little time period, but everybody just understood, and they were just on their shit, and everybody was just performing at the best they could. They were just so fucking creative at that point, bro. Recently, I found that the designers from back then, they all linked up recently and did something similar to a video podcast, and they were breaking down the design process, what happened, why it was the way it was, and it being because Nike was never really heavy into the [football] space, and they ended up bringing all these US designers and a bunch of British designers together, and they just approached it like no one’s ever approached it before.
They had to fight tooth and nail to even get the 90 placed on everything the way it was, bigger than Nike was. They were going back and forth, trying to convince Nike, literally the designers were like, ‘Yo, just trust us, this will work. This looks good, just trust us.’
You talked a bit about Bape being the model for FuturePast. What are your other ambitions with the brand?
I kind of just want to build a whole little ecosystem, like Saturdays Football, they’re based in New York. They kind of started as a weekly free pickup thing, and then they eventually got into vintage jersey selling, just straight up vintage jersey selling. All these spaces started by being heavy in the community, I like how they approached it. Now they just make their own product as well, alongside the vintage stuff, but I like that element.
I want a local team, I want to host tournaments, all in their own facility. I love the fact that around the GTA, they’re trying to open up more mini pitches, but I would want to bring that across the GTA eventually. Either through grants or personal business. It’d be to just build a bunch of community pitches, or hopefully get a facility.
I’m at a point in my life where soccer design for me, like, that’s it.
Photos: J’don Mcsween
Interview: Thomas Hewitt
