AABP EP Awards 728x90

NOTEBOOK – ONE GOOD READ: Pockets: Women — and girls — want them included in their clothes

/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/BR_web_311x311.jpeg

I formed a fondness for pockets at a young age. They were a place to stuff things — tissue, bugs and worms, my prized transistor radio, and of course, my hands. In elementary school, the clothes I wore usually didn’t have pockets. “Where do I put my [fill in the blank],” I groused. A purse, I was told. “Yuck,” I thought. During my career, my attire has mostly been slacks with pockets and jackets or sweaters with even deeper pockets, good places to stuff pens, notebooks, tape recorders and now phones. Given my affinity for pockets, it’s not surprising that a recent Wall Street Journal article by Rory Satran grabbed my attention. Youn Yuh-Jung, a Korean actress who won an Oscar for best supporting actress, showed up at the event in an elegant dress with — you guessed it — pockets. The “prevailing wisdom among fashion designers is that pockets are an unnecessary extravagance that break the line of a dress,” writes Satran, who touched on the history of pockets in women’s wear in her column. And while there are some breakthroughs in incorporating pockets into stylish evening gowns, it seems young girls continue to demand real pockets in their jeans. Seven-year-old Kamryn Gardner from Arkansas wrote this to Old Navy last year: “I do not like that the front pockets of the girls’ jeans are fake. I want front pockets because I want to put my hand in them. I also would like to put things in them.”