Historically Speaking: A Pocket-Sized Dilemma for Women

Unlike men’s clothes, female fashion has been indifferent for centuries to creating ways for women to stash things in their garments

The Wall Street Journal

September 29, 2022

The current round of Fashion Weeks started in New York on Sep. 9 and will end in Paris on Oct. 4, with London and Milan slotted in between. Amid the usual impractical and unwearable outfits on stage, some designers went their own way and featured—gasp—women’s wear with large pockets.

The anti-pocket prejudice in women’s clothing runs deep. In 1954, the French designer Christian Dior stated: “Men have pockets to keep things in, women for decoration.” Designers seem to think that their idea of how a woman should look outweighs what she needs from her clothes. That mentality probably explains why a 2018 survey found that 100% of the pockets in men’s jeans were large enough to fit a midsize cellphone, but only 40% of women’s jeans pockets measured up.

The pocket is an ancient idea, initially designed as a pouch that was tied or sewn to a belt beneath a layer of clothing. Otzi, the 5,300-year-old ice mummy I wrote about recently for having the world’s oldest known tattoos, also wore an early version of a pocket; it contained his fire-starting tools.

ILLUSTRATION: THOMAS FUCHS

The ancient concept was so practical that the same basic design was still in use during the medieval era. Attempts to find other storage solutions usually came up short. In the 16th century a man’s codpiece sometimes served as an alternative holdall, despite the awkwardness of having to fish around your crotch to find things. Its fall from favor at the end of the 1600s coincided with the first in-seam pockets for men.

It was at this stage that the pocket divided into “his” and “hers” styles. Women retained the tie-on version; the fashion for wide dresses allowed plenty of room to hang a pouch underneath the layers of petticoats. But it was also impractical since reaching a pocket required lifting the layers up.

Moralists looked askance at women’s pockets, which seemed to defy male oversight and could potentially be a hiding place for love letters, money and makeup. On the other hand, in the 17th century a maidservant was able to thwart the unwelcome advances of the diarist Samuel Pepys by grabbing a pin from her pocket and threatening to stab him with it, according to his own account.

Matters looked up for women in the 18th century with the inclusion of side slits on dresses that allowed them direct access to their pockets. Newspapers began to carry advertisements for articles made especially to be carried in them. Sewing kits and snuff boxes were popular items, as were miniature “conversation cards” containing witty remarks “to create mirth in mixed companies.”

Increasingly, though, the essential difference between men’s and women’s pockets—his being accessible and almost anywhere, hers being hidden and nestled near her groin—gave them symbolism. Among the macabre acts committed by the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper was the disemboweling of his victims’ pockets, which he left splayed open next to their bodies.

Women had been agitating for more practical dress styles since the formation of the Rational Dress Society in Britain in 1881, but it took the upheavals caused by World War I for real change to happen. Women’s pantsuits started to appear in the 1920s. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt caused a sensation by appearing in one in 1933. The real revolution began in 1934, with the introduction of Levi’s bluejeans for women, 61 years after the originals for men. The women’s front pocket was born. And one day, with luck, it will grow up to be the same size as men’s.

Historically Speaking: Fashion Shows: From Royal to Retail

The catwalk has always been a place for dazzling audiences as well as selling clothes

The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 12, 2019

The 2007 Fendi Fall Collection show at the Great Wall of China. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

As devotees know, the fashion calendar is divided between the September fashion shows, which display the designers’ upcoming spring collections, and the February shows, which preview the fall. New York Fashion Week, which wraps up this weekend, is the world’s oldest; it started in 1943, when it was called “press week,” and always goes first, followed by London, Milan, and Paris.

Although fashion week is an American invention, the twice-yearly fashion show can be traced back to the court of Louis XIV of France in the 17th century. The king insisted on a seasonal dress code at court as a way to boost the French textile industry: velvet and satin in the winter, silks in the summer. The French were also responsible for the rise of the dress designer: Charles Frederick Worth opened the first fashion house in Paris in 1858. Worth designed unique dresses for individual clients, but he made his fortune with seasonal dress collections, which he licensed to the new department stores that were springing up in the world’s big cities.

Worth’s other innovation was the use of live models instead of mannequins. By the late 1800s this had evolved into the “fashion parade,” a precursor to today’s catwalk, which took place at invitation-only luncheons and tea parties. In 1903, the Ehrich brothers transported the fashion parade idea to their department store in New York. The big difference was that the dresses on show could be bought and worn the same day. The idea caught on, and all the major department stores began holding fashion shows.

The French couture houses studiously ignored the consumer-friendly approach pioneered by American retailers. After World War II, however, they had to tout for business like anyone else. The first Paris fashion week took place in 1947. But unlike New York’s, which catered to journalists and wholesale buyers only, the emphasis of the Paris fashion shows was still on haute couture.

The two different types of fashion show—the selling kind, organized by department stores for the public, and the preview kind, held by designers for fashion insiders—coexisted until the 1960s. Suddenly, haute couture was out and buying off the rack was in. The retail fashion show became obsolete as the design houses turned to ready-to-wear collections and accessories such as handbags and perfume.

Untethered from its couture roots, the designer fashion show morphed into performance art—the more shocking the better. The late designer Alexander McQueen provocatively titled his 1995 Fall show “Highland Rape” and sent out models in bloodied and torn clothes. The laurels for the most insanely extravagant runway show still belong to Karl Lagerfeld, who staged his 2007 Fendi Fall Collection on the Great Wall of China at a cost of $10 million.

But today there’s trouble on the catwalk. Poor attendance has led to New York’s September Fashion Week shrinking to a mere five days. Critics have started to argue that the idea of seasonal collections makes little sense in today’s global economy, while the convenience of e-commerce has made customers unwilling to wait a week for a dress, let alone six months. Designers are putting on expensive fashion shows only to have their work copied and sold to the public at knockdown prices a few weeks later. The Ehrich brothers may have been right after all: don’t just tell, sell.