Is This the Real Reason Women’s Clothes Don’t Have Pockets?

Look inside any club and you’ll see it. Sit in any park on a nice day and you’ll see it there, too. And you’ll really see it on the Instagram page @girlscarryingsh*t: the “girl grip,” a woman’s superhuman ability to carry an absurd amount of items in one hand at any given time. From lip balms and giant water bottles to phones and chargers, there is nothing these claws can’t handle. So how did we get here?

Well, like with the Galapagos Islands’ numerous types of finches (which, Charles Darwin theorized, evolved from a single species to avoid competing with one another for food) and Antarctic fish that developed “anti-freeze” proteins in their blood, this phenomenon is known in the scientific community as adapting to one’s surroundings. Or, in the case of womankind, adapting to a lack of pockets.

It’s no secret that women are desperately lacking in the pocket department. According to a 2018 study by The Pudding, the front pockets on women’s jeans are on average 48 per cent shorter and 6.5 per cent narrower than they are on men’s jeans. As someone on Reddit said, “men can literally park their car in their pockets,” whereas most women can’t even fit their own hand in theirs. That is, if the designer retailer has even bothered to include them at all.

There exists a long-standing myth that brands purposely don’t put pockets in women’s clothing so women will be more likely to support the purse industry So, in a feminist act of rebellion, FASHION decided to get answers for ourselves, and it was much tougher than we anticipated.

The History of Pockets is Extremely Extensive

There is so much written about pockets — like, so much! Case in point: In 1991, a Copper Age mummy named Ötzi was discovered in the Alps with many of his belongings intact. To our delight, archaeologists discovered a pouch sewn to his belt, tracing the oldest ever recorded pocket to around 3,300 BCE.

Fast-forward to the medieval period and both men and women were taking cues from their ancient friend and wearing small leather or fabric sacks tied around their waists with rope or attached to belts. As societies grew, crime swiftly followed and the pouch and its contents moved from the outside of clothing to being hidden underneath for protection.

It wasn’t until the 17th century, however, that the modern pocket was truly conceived and an unequal sartorial divide between the sexes was born. As men’s suits started becoming more modern, pockets were sewn directly into the seams and fabric lining, much as they are today.

In comparison, women were still relying on medieval methods, which, because of the excessive layers they were required to wear, made it difficult to access their belongings in public. There is even a theory online that women were banned from having pockets during the French Revolution to prevent them from carrying and spreading “revolutionary material,” leaving them with no other option than the purse.

Purses Have Re-Entered the Chat

The bags of the 1800s were so tiny they barely even fit a coin, but as women started becoming more independent in the early 20th century, solutions were developed to meet their growing needs. After the suffragettes lobbied for the right to vote by wearing the dress equivalent of cargo pants (which had seven or eight visible pockets and were considered quite “unladylike” and scandalous), Coco Chanel made pockets mainstream by adding them to her designs in the ’20s.

As the century progressed, clothing became more form-fitting; many designers detoured from the Chanel model and removed their pouches to preserve the“feminine silhouette.” And because women still needed to carry their lipstick in something, they began buying more purses. But unlike the pocket, which enabled women to fling their arms about freely, these clutches had no strap, so women had to carry them in their hands.

So in February 1955, Chanel released the 2.55, named for its release date. Other brands were focused on clutches, so this design’s added shoulder strap provided women with the much-needed freedom to move as they pleased. However, Chanel may have been a little too good at her job....

A Shift in the System

You see, since the ’50s, there has been a role reversal of sorts in the fashion industry. Handbags, which started as a convenient accessory and a fun extension of an apparel brand, are major money-makers for many luxury brands. According to Fortune Business Insights, in 2022, the North American handbag market was valued at $16.3 billion. By 2030, that number is projected to grow to $26.47 billion.

A former designer assistant at McQueen, who wishes to remain anonymous, muses that with so much money at stake, clothing could now almost be considered an accessory to the handbags. “When Tom Ford debuted his first collection for Gucci in the ’90s, almost every single look had a handbag to go with it,” they point out. “Since then, ready-to-wear and purses have gone hand in hand.”

Fellow Canadian designers Eliza Faulkner (formerly of Erdem, Roland Mouret and Zandra Rhodes and now creative director of her own brand) and Caffery Vanhorne (who worked at an undisclosed luxury house) echo our anonymous source, with Faulkner reiterating that “brands make money off accessories, not clothes.” Vanhorne also admits that he has witnessed seasons where “more than half the clothes shown on the runway never went to production — they were just to showcase bags.”

The Inconvenient Truth of it All

What does this mean for our original question: Do brands purposely exclude pockets in women’s clothing so women will be more likely to support the purse industry? Well, it doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines above. To quote the great philosophers known as ABBA, it all comes down to “money, money, money.”

Like J.Lo gaslighting us into believing that her and Ben Affleck’s relationship history was “the greatest love story never told,” the handbag industry essentially barged in and seduced women into believing that the purse was the answer to all their portable needs. The only obstacle in their way? The pocket.

By that logic, as long as women are denied pockets, they would be forced to spend more money on bags and thus an entire industry could be sustained by reducing the size of pouches or excluding them from women’s clothing.

In fact, this was happening as early as the ’60s. As fashion folklore goes, when legendary editor Diana Vreeland took over at Vogue, she reportedly thought purses were “a drag” and wanted to devote an entire issue to celebrating pockets. But it’s said she was denied by her publishers because of the financial support they got from handbag advertisers.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if there is some truth to keeping women’s pockets smaller to support purses and bags,” admits Faulkner. “For luxury designers, the clothes may seem like the star of the show, but the accessories are where these brands make the most money.”

Vanhorne adds that for himself, he only ever produced an apparel line to showcase his bag collection on the runway. “In luxury goods, clothes are a loss leader,” he says. “I had no intention of selling clothes. To this day, I produce beautiful clothes simply to sell accessories.”

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

However, the plight of being pocketless doesn’t stop there. While attempting to debunk the purse-versus-pocket debate, we came across a slew of excuses.

“One excuse for the lack of pockets has always been ‘but women have handbags,’” says Hannah Carlson, author of Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close (2023) and senior lecturer in apparel design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). But evidence suggests that handbags were invented after pockets, so this is a weak excuse used to write off women’s needs.

As Sarah C. Byrd, a fashion archivist, puts it, there is an economic aspect to all fashion. The current theory circulating online is that, as one Quora user suggested, removing pockets from pants can lead to more profit. Byrd has heard this before, noting that some brands defend their lack of pockets in womenswear because they can save on supplies, materials and production time.

Carlson admits that, yes, it is a cost (“Students studying fashion at RISD have said to me, ‘Pockets take commitment’”), but money is only a small part of the problem. “Including pockets in menswear is a part of doing business — it isn’t in womenswear,” she says. “That difference suggests that the reason is not merely one of economics.” It’s about gender.

Many have tried to write off women’s lack of pockets as a preference for a more “feminine silhouette.” Think yoga pants, tight-fitting jeans and miniskirts with no room to spare. Though perhaps no one has put it better than Indiana University professor Christopher Todd Matthews, who writes in the academic article “Form and Deformity: The Trouble With Victorian Pockets” that Victorian women were told that they “had four external bulges already — two breasts and two hips — and a money pocket inside their dress would make an ungainly fifth.”

Carlson also stresses that the “gendered distribution of pockets” and the age-old argument of fashion versus function play a role. As she told The New York Times in the 2023 article “Why Don’t Women’s Clothes Have More Pockets?” it’s evident that “men’s clothes are meant for utility and women’s for beauty, [which] old ideas about women’s place and about the more limited social and economic contributions they are expected to make.”

Essentially: Men are required to act and therefore need practical clothing. Women are expected to simply appear and be watched — their beauty prioritized above all else. And these outdated gender ideals are still being sewn directly into our clothing.

There is Hope

So where do we go from here? Well, just like with the Pink Tax, our salvation can be found in shopping in the men’s department and in the rise of gender-neutral fashion.

“Regardless of which missing-pocket explanation you believe, the trend toward more unisex fashion may have a democratizing effect on pockets,” says Doug Stephens, the founder of Retail Prophet. Byrd agrees, going so far as to say that she’s “optimistic” about the future of unisex clothing and pocket equality for all, even though it may take some time.

Until then, independent designers have got you covered. “If you’re looking for a dress with pockets, I would say buy from women-led brands...especially smaller ones,” shares Faulkner, whose own work has a plethora of pouches. “They work much more closely with the garments and think about pockets more than a large corporation does.”

Alternatively, if you’re in need of a hobby, you could take on the pocket problem yourself by DIYing them. While pants may require a bit more finesse, a dress has ample room to open up the side seam and add in some storage panels. When in doubt, just watch a few TikToks. You’re sure to be a semi-pro in no time. No girl grip required.

Research assistance by Sarah Mariotti

This article first appeared in FASHION’s November 2024 issue. Find out more here.