WOMENS POCKETS

I wrote a blog several years ago about the almost total lack of pockets in female clothing entitled Womens Pockets. That blog was specifically about jeans, and it reflected the frustration felt by my partner about how miniscule, or non-existent, were the pockets in her jeans compared to those in men’s jeans. It was therefore interesting to read this following article, published recently, about that how this subject has been a female gripe for generations, and how some fashion designers have tried to change that status. The arguments center on the fact that form-fitting clothes and pockets don’t go together.

      “Social media trends can frequently be hard to fathom and, at first glance, a recent spate of women posting TikTok videos of their hands grasping as many objects as they can physically hold on to seemed as unintelligible as many viral fads. But “the claw grip” is less random than it seems, serving as the latest Trojan horse for an issue that won’t go away: why women’s clothes don’t have more pockets. 

      It’s become almost a meme in itself: a woman complimenting another woman on her dress, only for the reply to be an excitable declaration that: “It has pockets!” Forget hunting for the perfect jeans, the ultimate white T-shirt or the ideal little black dress – nothing gets hearts racing quite like a simple square of fabric. But behind all the lighthearted fervour lies a genuine frustration: the humble pocket has long been a flashpoint in the gender divide of fashion.

      At the fashion shows earlier this year many models swaggered down the catwalks with their hands pushed firmly into deep pockets.

      Pocket inequality isn’t new – it’s a centuries-old frustration, but the issue has been thrust back into the spotlight with increasing frequency in recent years: A “#WeWantPockets” hashtag has gained momentum on social media. As phones got bigger, women realised how hopeless their pockets were. A 2020 YouGov survey in the U.K. found that 4 in 10 women had put an item of clothing back on the rack once they realised there were no pockets.

      When pockets do exist, they’re usually shorter and narrower than those on men’s clothes. Or, at their most maddening, nothing more than sheer illusion. Earlier this year an eight-year-old schoolgirl wrote to U.K. supermarket Sainsbury’s asking why their girls’ school trousers had fake pockets and the boys had real ones. “Girls need to carry things too”, she said. A representative from the retailer promised to look into the issue.

      “Pockets have become a symbolic and very contentious part of male and female dress,” says Caroline Stevenson, programme director of Cultural and Historical Studies at the University of the Arts London.

      At the autumn/winter 2025-26 fashion shows earlier this year, which set the trends for what we’ll be wearing in the coming months, there were signs that the industry is taking note. Many models swaggered down the catwalks with their hands pushed firmly into deep pockets – carrying an extra dose of confidence compared to those with their arms flailing freely. At Simone Rocha, actress Fiona Shaw had her hands stashed away inside a black satin egg dress. There were plenty of pockets at Prada and Louis Vuitton too. Whether it’s a significant shift or just a passing moment in the fashion cycle – or if it will trickle down to the clothes that women wear in their everyday lives – remains to be seen.

      Pockets for women have long been an afterthought. “In the 16th and 17th Centuries, women did have a kind of pocket,” says Stevenson. “They had what they called tie-on pockets which tied around the body and were underneath the skirts, which had a slit in the sides so you could reach into them. “These tie-on pockets were often heavily decorated and used to store items like keys, money, handkerchiefs and sewing kits, as well as valuables like watches, snuff-boxes and smelling bottles. “They symbolised a sense of autonomy,” says Stevenson. “But they disappeared in the late-18th and early-19th Century when the Regency style was introduced, and silhouettes became much more form fitting.” As pockets went away, so did that autonomy. “If, as a woman, you can’t take your valuables into the public sphere, it makes you a lot more vulnerable and dependent on males or servants,” says Stevenson. All the things that might go in pockets – money, keys, notes – symbolised things that weren’t meant to concern women, like property, power and privacy. Some women started carrying small bags instead. “That was another thing that made you more vulnerable because it meant you couldn’t really use your hands,” says Stevenson.  

      While a lack of pockets was no doubt as frustrating to women then as it is now, it didn’t really emerge as a political issue until the early 20th Century. “The suffragettes demanded votes for women, but also pockets,” says Stevenson. Satirical cartoons of the time made fun of suffragettes stuffing their hands into big pockets like men. “It’s interesting that a pocket became one of the symbolic ways to backlash against a woman’s desire for independence and freedom,” says Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, the author of a new biography of a woman who was determined to solve the pocket problem: U.S. fashion designer Claire McCardell.

      All this has led to some women taking things into their own hands. Julie Sygiel founded her clothing line The Pockets Project in 2021 after becoming frustrated by a lack of change in the industry. “I think my beef is that even in silhouettes that can easily accommodate pockets we don’t get them, or we get these tiny pockets,” she has explained. “There’s so many women’s outfits that could have big pockets. I finally realised if I wanted change to happen, I was going to have to do it myself and create dresses that I wanted to wear with big pockets.”

      Sygiel says once she became aware of the pocket disparity she couldn’t stop noticing the ripple effects in her daily life. “Take the work environment for example,” she says. “When you enter a conference room as a woman carrying a bag, it’s almost as if you’re a guest in that space. Whereas a man entering the room who’s got all of the stuff in his pockets, he is very at ease. This is his domain. I love a good handbag. They help me carry a lot of things. But in certain situations, it’s more powerful to not have one with me.” Her business has proven popular, with many lines selling out and more designs and colours added – and many women sharing their pocket irritations with her. “One woman wrote to me and said that when she was getting married, she asked the tailor to add pockets to her wedding jumpsuit, and he said no because it wouldn’t look ‘proper’. I thought that was so wild.”

      Sygiel is optimistic that change in the air. “I feel like we’re making progress. It’s been a while since I’ve been shopping and saw a fake pocket.” Dickinson is less sure, and thinks that Claire McCardell would be aghast that fashion still hadn’t figured out a way to be both stylish and practical. “McCardell believed that she was building not just a system for making clothes but an industry that would forefront women’s perspectives. I think she would be horrified today to see how few women are at the helm of most major brands.”

      It seems the fight for pocket parity has some way to go. “Why is it so hard to get dressed still to this day as a woman of the world?” asks Dickinson. “The idea that a pocket still feels like an accessory, and not a necessity, is shocking.”