Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/28/pocketeses.html
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Women's tie-on pockets · V&A
Discover how the development of the humble tie-on pocket during the 1700s offered independence and security for women.
Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/28/pocketeses.html
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File under “Why didn’t I think of that 500 years ago?”
500 years ago women had pockets
They were big tie on things. I think that as clothes became more form fitting women rejected them as unsightly.
Did I logic good?
Wrong.
Paging:
@anon61221983 @Magdalene @IronEdithKidd @anon15383236 @MalevolentPixy @Nightflyer @KathyPartdeux @Lexicat @Slartibartfast @any other women on this forum who wanna sound off about how we feel about POCKETS.
I never realized how big of a deal pockets are on dresses till I saw how excited my friends would get about dresses with pockets. It’s a pretty big deal!
@d4nj450n @Melz2 @anon61221983 @IronEdithKidd @anon15383236 @Nightflyer @MalevolentPixy @KathyPartdeux @Slartibartfast @Magdalene
Let me set it down for you sharply: Pocket dresses rock all the socks, and rule all the schools.
Edit: No sartorial prescriptivism intended here.* Carry on!
* I mean, beyond the objectively right fact that dresses with pockets are rad, uh… epic, that is to say iconic. (As the kids these days are sayin’.)
Worse than dresses with no pockets are jackets with fake pockets.
My sweetheart buys her dresses from eShakti, because they have pockets.
My Dear Wife loves a good pocket story.
Pockets are wonderful. Real pockets, not the little cutesy fake ones that won’t take keys or phones or anything larger than a quarter, if that.
Discover how the development of the humble tie-on pocket during the 1700s offered independence and security for women.
specifically
In the 1790s women’s fashions changed very dramatically. Wide hoops and full petticoats went out of style. Instead, dresses had a high waistline and skirts that fell close to the body and legs. This meant that traditional pockets and their contents would ruin the line of the dress. As a solution, women began to use reticules, decorative bags designed be carried over the arm in the manner of our contemporary handbag. However, reticules are very small with barely enough room for a hankie and a coin, never mind the mirror, watch, keys, needlecase and oranges that a pocket usually contained. Contemporary literature on proper behaviour suggests that women continued to wear their pockets:
Theresa Tidy, Eighteen Maxims of Neatness and Order , 1819:
‘Never sally forth from your own room in the morning without that old-fashioned article of dress - a pocket. Discard forever that modern invention called a ridicule (properly reticule).’
It’s trivial to add pockets to the styles worn by Patterson and her friends. Not so for other styles.
Also desperately in need of pockets: most superheroes.
Seriously, pockets are so rare in comic book heroes that Batman’s utility belt literally qualifies as a superpower.
Um to clarify a bit. I think RICH women, who had people to carry things around for them, rejected pockets as unsightly and then less rich women tried to follow along with the fashions and things went down hill from there. I get that modern women want pockets. I certainly would.
Also what is up with the torture devices yall put on your feet?
First of all, who is “y’all?”
Women are not monolithic, and I wear sneakers, pretty much everyday.
Next, if you’re referring to high heels, those were yet another invention of men; though not originally intended for women, they did become part of the oppressive and impractical dress code that “feminine” women have been expected to adhere to for ages.