Pockets for women

[El Pollo Diablo]

Interesting chat with Mrs PD the other day. She was talking about her new enthusiasm for podcasts, after roughly ten years of me trying to get her into them (she listens to exactly zero of the ones I've recommended).

Long story short*, she needs to buy some noise-cancelling earphones because none of her coats have got inside pockets to put her phone in.

But why? It's probably the second most useful set of pockets I have. Why not put them in women's outerwear? Has there been any movement with giving women more pockets in recent times? Or would you rather not?

And before anyone starts, I have lots of pockets and carry a rucksack almost everywhere, so you can f.ck off with the handbag argument.


*Trust me on this.

[discovolante]

My coats all have pockets, although I mostly wear a puffer jacket thingy now and haven't bought a new fitted coat for a few years. So I can't help I'm afraid.

You're welcome.

[FlammableFlower]

I got really irritated by this the other day - my daughter started Ten Tors training at the beginning of January, so off to buy lots of kit...

...and we get to walking trousers (as in trousers designed to be comfortable when hiking and quick drying etc, not that they walk themselves) - were we find that you can indeed by trousers that are more fitting to a female body shape Spoiler:

versus unisex ones that if they fit on her hips are way too loose on the waist and further down her leg

- except they come at the cost of have fewer and much smaller pockets.

So unisex ones it is. Why do designers think that women hiking will suddenly require fewer pockets and have less stuff? Apparently only the ones who want clothes that fit.

It was similar for waterproof coats. I bought her the identical coat (Berghaus Extrem 5000) that I'd bought her older brother last year (in the christmas sale - it's a fantastic coat, but sodding expensive, so half-price was a bonus) but I got her the women's fit (again so it would actually fit better and be more comfortable) - this time it has the same number of pockets, but again they are smaller, particularly the chest "map pocket" - which in the men's coat it's really deep and extends pretty much to the waist, whereas in the women's coat is just about hand-sized.

Why? This is surely the time when, yes style is nice, but function is really bl..dy important and there is no excuse for it.

[Martin Y]

Pointlessly small, fake or missing pockets in women's clothes was, IIRC, the subject of one episode of a podcast series by one of the regular women presenters on 99% Invisible.

The thing which stuck in my mind was when they looked to see if this was also true of practical clothing like police uniforms, they found that there were indeed differences between male and female versions but they struggled to find an example as all the women officers wear the male uniform as it has practical pockets.

Ha! Found it: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ ... nterest-3/

[FlammableFlower]

Pointlessly small, fake or missing pockets in women's clothes was, IIRC, the subject of one episode of a podcast series by one of the regular women presenters on 99% Invisible.

The thing which stuck in my mind was when they looked to see if this was also true of practical clothing like police uniforms, they found that there were indeed differences between male and female versions but they struggled to find an example as all the women officers wear the male uniform as it has practical pockets.

Ha! Found it: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ ... nterest-3/

Yeah, it's that bolded bit that underlines the problem. It seems people focus so strongly on "style" (and maybe fit) that they neglect import points of functionality. Are these things so far removed to be impossible to reconcile? I strongly doubt it.

MrsFF also had a pair of jeans that had what appeared to be fake pockets, but no.. they turned out to stupidly small pockets that had then been sewn shut...

[Gentleman Jim]

It should be the men's trousers with no pockets
Come on, own up. Who hasn't EVER ask wife/girlfriend/partner etc, if they can keep you key/wallet/phone, in their handbag/shoulder bag etc

[El Pollo Diablo]

A bit more reading on the topic:

Some of its history, which goes back to the 18th century, and is noted to have been an issue for the suffragettes: https://medium.com/verve-up/the-bewilde ... edf3a98117

A video which goes into some detail: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/5 ... on-history

[Martin Y]

MrsFF also had a pair of jeans that had what appeared to be fake pockets, but no.. they turned out to stupidly small pockets that had then been sewn shut...

To be fair, that's a thing on men's jackets too. Not an item I often buy, or indeed wear, but they tend to come with the pockets stitched shut to keep their shape and you have the option of unpicking if you want to use them.

[Fishnut]

Caroline Criado-Perez's book Invisible Women has a good section on women's clothing. While the lack of pockets is frustrating it isn't usually life-threatening. But badly designed PPE can be. I don't have the book to hand right now to get specifics but I remember stuff about police stab-proof vests not being designed to accommodate women's breasts which meant they didn't fit properly, leaving female officers vulnerable and more prone to injuries from wearing them (iirc shoulder injuries were far higher in female officers wearing the PPE than make officers).

[Martin Y]

Speaking from waaay over here where I'm out of touch, did the fashion idea of boyfriend jeans introduce women to the concept of pockets you can actually use? I imagine this would spark a revolution. Or are "boyfriend jeans" (bought as a fashion thing rather than an actual boyfriend's jeans) only cut to look like they're men's jeans for women while still having useless pockets?

[Woodchopper]

But why? It's probably the second most useful set of pockets I have. Why not put them in women's outerwear?

As far as I'm aware, the assumption is that adding a pocket would make the wearer look less slim, and so affect sales.

[Woodchopper]

Here's some very stylish lady pockets.

[discovolante]

Speaking from waaay over here where I'm out of touch, did the fashion idea of boyfriend jeans introduce women to the concept of pockets you can actually use? I imagine this would spark a revolution. Or are "boyfriend jeans" (bought as a fashion thing rather than an actual boyfriend's jeans) only cut to look like they're men's jeans for women while still having useless pockets?

Lol, we know what pockets are

It doesn't really make sense. The market is there. Maybe not every woman would go for them but plenty would. I'm pretty sure that if I opened a women's clothes shop called 'pockets' and sold clothes with nice big pockets I'd be a millionaire by lunchtime.

[Martin Y]

… I'm pretty sure that if I opened a women's clothes shop called 'pockets' and sold clothes with nice big pockets I'd be a millionaire by lunchtime.

Yeah, all joking aside that seems to encapsulate the mystery: if the opportunity is there, why is nobody exploiting it? Clothing designers make these decisions on every single garment they come up with. Yet there doesn't even seem to be market space for a version with useable pockets option. Instead we have innumerable smartphones precariously sticking half out of undersized hip pockets.

[nefibach]

MrsFF also had a pair of jeans that had what appeared to be fake pockets, but no.. they turned out to stupidly small pockets that had then been sewn shut...

To be fair, that's a thing on men's jackets too. Not an item I often buy, or indeed wear, but they tend to come with the pockets stitched shut to keep their shape and you have the option of unpicking if you want to use them.

Pockets on new items of clothing are tacked shut (technically it's tacking not sewing) and you are supposed to remove the tacking thread when you buy the item. They do this so that crap doesn't get in the pockets, and they don't get saggy when being transported, displayed or tried on. It's not supposed to be permanent.

[snoozeofreason]

I got really irritated by this the other day - my daughter started Ten Tors training at the beginning of January, so off to buy lots of kit...
...

I hope you don't mind a derail, but that triggered a post-traumatic memory of my own Ten Tors training nearly half a century ago. Up to that point I had always loved Dartmoor, and I'd started out with plenty of enthusiasm, but in the weeks leading up to the event we had been training on the moors every weekend for what seemed like ages (probably wasn't) and by then I was sick of it. It wasn't so much the physical hardship as the lack of any downtime. On the first day of the real thing I "fell" into a stream. It wasn't a particularly deep stream, so I was in no danger of drowning, but I did manage to get myself sufficiently soaked through that the squaddies at the next checkpoint evacuated me from the moor. I can still remember the feeling of relief as I was driven back home and, to this day, I am not sure whether I really fell in or sort of subconsciously jumped. Either way it killed off my enthusiasm for hiking for many years afterwards.

Maybe your daughter is made of stronger stuff than me (being less introverted might help because less need for downtime), but the message from the teenage Snooze is to make sure that she knows it's OK to say that she is finding it hard going. Good training takes you a little way out of your comfort zone, but not too far, and she is the only one who knows where the edges of her comfort zone are and what it is that she finds uncomfortable. And when they say that Ten Tors is not a race, that really means it's not a race. What matters is how much you enjoy it, and how much it develops you as a person, not how fast you get round the course.

[bagpuss]

Actually, I'm not that fussed about big inside pockets in coats* but that's mainly because coats are never cut to fit my boobage in any case and there's no way I could put anything of significant size in any inside pocket. I would say that the incompatibility with boobage might be a reason for the lack of inside pockets in women's coats but, since women's clothes are not designed to cope with significant boobage in any other way, this seems unlikely.

Ski jackets do seem to be an honourable exception, with my last ski jacket having just as many pockets as Mr Bagpuss's, despite being very definitely a women's fit. My current waterproof coat isn't as good as ski jackets but does have reasonable pocketage. These things do seem to suggest that the lack of pockets may be intended to be a style thing with smart/stylish coats not having them to avoid spoiling the line or some such. But that doesn't explain the lack of pockets in the women's fit outdoor clothing that FF was buying.

Women's jeans definitely used to have bigger pockets than they do now. I think they shrank at about the same time that everything went stretchy and skin tight, which does make some logical sense as bulging pockets show more now than they did in the old days of non-stretchy heavier weight denim.

It's true for young girls' clothes vs boys' as well though. Boys' shorts, for example, will typically extend to not far above their knees and have proper pockets for keeping safe those vital conkers, snail shells, pebbles, etc. Girls' shorts on the other hand will typically be about 6 inches shorter and have either no pocket at all or something you can barely squeeze the smallest conker into.


*Small zipped inside pockets, however, are a rare but fabulous thing

[individualmember]

...she needs to buy some noise-cancelling earphones because none of her coats have got inside pockets to put her phone in.

I don’t see how the one part results from the other

[El Pollo Diablo]

I did say you'd have to trust me on that.

[Lew Dolby]

and my ex-girlfriend says when you've finished introducing designers of womens clothes to the pocket issue - you can then try to convince 'em that not all women want outdoor gear in baby pink or blue !!

[Pucksoppet]

I know they don't suit everybody, but some Barbour waxed cotton jackets can have a sufficiency of pockets.

A female acquaintance of mine had one and demonstrated its practicality by showing how one of the capacious inside pockets could quite easily hold a pair of high-heeled shoes. This was a long time ago, mind you.

[murmur]

and my ex-girlfriend says when you've finished introducing designers of womens clothes to the pocket issue - you can then try to convince 'em that not all women want outdoor gear in baby pink or blue !!

f.ck yeah!

The Bread Goddess has had a number of blue jackets over the years as being less annoying than the alternatives. Pockets are variable...

[dyqik]

and my ex-girlfriend says when you've finished introducing designers of womens clothes to the pocket issue - you can then try to convince 'em that not all women want outdoor gear in baby pink or blue !!

Here there's always the option of camo, with a streak of hot pink running through it.

[murmur]

I know they don't suit everybody, but some Barbour waxed cotton jackets can have a sufficiency of pockets.

A female acquaintance of mine had one and demonstrated its practicality by showing how one of the capacious inside pockets could quite easily hold a pair of high-heeled shoes. This was a long time ago, mind you.

The poachers' pockets in more traditional Barbour styles can hold many, many things...

Some of the newer styles (the Corbridge I got recently is an example) are not so amply pocketed, but serve OK for most of my purposes.

[rockdoctor]

Went out for dinner with my wife the other evening and the same topic came up. My wife was showing me that her beloved old coat had only decorative flaps where the pockets should be, but then noticed that there were pockets, tacked shut.
Her face as she realised the inconvenience of about 15 years of managing without the pockets