--- description: Wednesday may be 'Back to Future' Day, but Marty McFly wasn't the only person with outlandish dreams of what the years ahead would bring. title: Watch How People in the Past Imagined the Future image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5965c3c3e12100e7/6988694aa988ca708c6b4e94/gettyimages-147968046.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [U.S.](/section/us/) ## U.S. Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Technology](/tag/technology/) ## Technology Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Here's How People in the Past Imagined the Future by [Joyce Lee](/author/joyce-lee/) ## Joyce Lee Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 21, 2015 8:30 PM CUT  Rod Taylor in his laboratory testing his time machine in a scene from the film 'The Time Machine', 1960\. (Photo by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images) Rod Taylor in his laboratory testing his time machine in a scene from the film 'The Time Machine', 1960\. (Photo by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images)Archive Photos—Getty Images by [Joyce Lee](/author/joyce-lee/) ## Joyce Lee Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 21, 2015 8:30 PM CUT Wednesday may be [_Back to Future_ Day](http://time.com/4078798/back-to-the-future-day/?xid=homepage "undefined"), but Marty McFly wasn’t the only person with outlandish dreams of what the years ahead would bring. In 1971, Rudi Gernreich, the 1960s quintessential avant-garde fashion designer, predicted fashion of the future would be unisex and that the body itself, not the clothes, would be the sole object of beauty. Others imagined the future would bring forth a metallic, obtuse world made up of robots with human minds and space stations that resembled ferris wheels. Watch the video above to see what the McFlys’ of the past imagined the new millennium would hold. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4082194/back-to-the-future-day-how-the-past-imagined-the-future/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4082194/back-to-the-future-day-how-the-past-imagined-the-future/"},"headline":"Here's How People in the Past Imagined the Future","datePublished":"2015-10-21T20:30:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:58:46.597Z","description":"There were a lot of wild predictions","url":"https://time.com/4082194/back-to-the-future-day-how-the-past-imagined-the-future/","keywords":["Technology","fashion","Back to the Future"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5965c3c3e12100e7/6988694aa988ca708c6b4e94/gettyimages-147968046.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joyce Lee","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joyce-lee/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5965c3c3e12100e7/6988694aa988ca708c6b4e94/gettyimages-147968046.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Rod Taylor In 'The Time Machine'","caption":"Rod Taylor In 'The Time Machine'","creditText":"Archive Photos—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/technology/","name":"Technology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4082194/back-to-the-future-day-how-the-past-imagined-the-future/","name":"Here's How People in the Past Imagined the Future"}}]}] ```