The pocket revolution for female fashion is here: Why women’s clothing is finally focusing on its ‘hidden superpower’
Women’s clothing is no longer out of pocket.
While men can usually carry their keys, wallet and phone around inside their clothing, ladies have been forced to buy handbags to hold their essential items while running errands or out on the town.
But that is changing.
Both women’s workwear brands and high-fashion houses are creating clothing for the fairer sex which features deep pockets.
Sali Christeson, a corporate banker in Chicago, founded Argent, a brand that keeps functional office attire at the forefront of its mission.
The white collar worker created the company after being angered by the “maddening lack” of pockets in women’s clothing, forcing them to sprint back to their desks to fetch their purses before lunch breaks,
“Pockets have become the hidden superpower in our collection,” she told the Wall Street Journal, as more women realize that what a girl wants — and needs — is more stashing space in clothes.
“Pockets inequality is a centuries-old form of gender bias,” Aditi Sinha, the co-founder of Seattle-based women’s workwear label Point of View, told Seattle Refined.
“Only 5% of women’s pockets can fit a smartphone, compared to 85% of men’s pockets. On average, women’s pockets are 48% shorter and 6.5% narrower than men’s pockets.”
The Pacific Northwest brand is also tackling the pervasiveness of pocketless clothing by reimagining office attire for modern women, who, Sinha added, deserve to benefit from the ease and convenience of pockets and be free “from unnecessary back and shoulder pain” that accompanies heavy handbags.
“It’s an assumption that women would rather have a streamlined appearance over something functional and practical,” Los Angeles stylist and newsletter author Laurel Pantin told the Journal, calling pocketless garments “just cruel.”
It seems that the high fashion industry is starting to play catch up, with the proliferation of cargo pants and “corpcore” pieces with deeper pockets presented on runways.
Although, some labels continue to produce pants with faux pockets — arguably the most devastating realization when trying on a pair of jeans — and back pockets that can barely fit the growing sizes of iPhones these days.
Hunter Scafer donned a periwinkle Armani Privé gown with pockets in the skirt at the Cannes Film Festival last month, while Blake Lively was stunned to discover her Chanel floral two-piece suit had pockets while posing for the red carpet photographers, promptly ditching her purse in response.
Farfetch senior editor Celenie Seidel told the Journal that European fashion houses, such as Dries Van Noten and Miu Miu, are “not designers that rob a woman of functionality.” Saint Laurent also presented women’s workwear on both the brand’s fall/winter and spring 2024 runways, highlighting the prominence of pockets in the garments.
Meanwhile, Courrèges debuted a new collection with pockets at the forefront. Designed for women’s pleasure in more than one way, the pockets on the center front of trousers were a cheeky addition to the line’s eccentric design.
But the plea for pockets is not exclusively for storage purposes.
“When you’re in a new or uncomfortable situation,” M.M.LaFleur’s Shelby Goldfaden told the Journal, “having a place to put your hands can be grounding.”
The battle for pocket real estate dates back generations, according to Hannah Carlson, the author of “Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.” Menswear has long been designed with utility in mind, while the daily duties of women, who were assumed to be keepers of the home and children, negated the need for storage in their clothing.
In 1899, reports the Journal, activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton lamented the lack of pockets in womenswear, penning an essay in favor of fashion equality. A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column, “A Plea for Pockets,” was published mere years later, which likened men to kangaroos because to their pocket-containing clothing.
“Woman,” it read, per the Journal, “has not so much as a little pocket in which to bestow her kerchief.”
Even in the 20th century, Carlson, a Rhode Island School of Design professor, told the outlet, “there was this expectation that women’s clothes aren’t made for pockets.”
The lack of pockets forced women to develop superhuman finger strength, each digit able to precariously balance or grip a necessary item.
The Instagram account “Girls Carrying S–t” demonstrates the many ways in which women yield such a uniquely agile power; one woman dangles her keys from a finger while juggling a smartphone and novel in the same hand, while another carries two bottles by the neck with ease in one hand and, in the other, totes bagged lettuce, a box of basil, a jar of pesto and fresh mozzarella.
“Wouldn’t we really like to see more inside breast pockets in a jacket though?” Carlson succinctly described the desire of every woman, per The Guardian. “Wouldn’t it make life easier?”
