Pockets were separate objects long before they were sewn into clothes

A bag, not a feature

For most of the history of clothing there was no such thing as a pocket in the modern sense. What people had was a purse or a pouch, hung from a belt or a girdle, carrying coins, keys and the small necessary objects of a day. It was an accessory, and it could be cut away by a thief, which is where the word cutpurse comes from.

The change to something sewn in was gradual and it happened at different times for different garments. Once a garment was tailored closely enough to have an inside, a bag could be attached to that inside and reached through a slit, and the pocket became part of the clothing rather than a thing you carried.

The distinction is worth holding onto, because it explains the shape of the thing. A pocket is still a bag. It is a separate piece of cloth, cut and stitched and hung inside a garment, and it is attached at an opening rather than being part of the outer fabric.

Two divergent paths

In European dress from the seventeenth century onwards, men's coats, waistcoats and breeches acquired sewn-in pockets and kept adding them. The result is the garment we still have: a suit jacket carries several, inside and out, and trousers carry more.

Women's dress went a different way for a long period. Pockets were separate bags, tied around the waist on tapes and worn beneath the skirts, reached through slits in the outer layers. They were often large, sometimes embroidered, and they were removable — which meant they could be moved between outfits, an advantage a sewn-in pocket does not have.

They were also, in an important sense, private. A tie-on pocket sat under the clothing rather than in it, and reaching into one was a different act from putting a hand in a coat pocket.

The silhouette that removed them

Around the turn of the nineteenth century the fashionable line in women's dress became narrow and high-waisted in fine fabrics that hung close to the body. A pair of bulky tie-on pockets underneath was visible through the cloth and ruined the effect.

The response was to carry the contents in a small handbag instead, and that is the point at which the handbag becomes a standard item rather than an occasional one. It solved the silhouette problem and it introduced a new one: what had been attached to the body was now an object that could be set down, forgotten or taken.

The asymmetry that followed has been remarked on ever since and it has never entirely closed. Women's garments are still frequently made with smaller pockets, shallower pockets or no pockets at all, and the reasons given are usually about line and fit — which was the original reason too.

What a pocket does to a garment

There is a genuine tension underneath the argument, and it is worth stating fairly. A pocket is an extra layer of cloth hanging inside a garment, and it adds bulk exactly where a close-fitting garment has least room. Fill it and it distorts the outer fabric visibly.

The construction methods reflect attempts to manage that. A patch pocket is applied to the outside and is the simplest and most casual. A welt or jetted pocket is a slit finished with narrow strips, with the bag hanging inside, and it is the flattest and most formal. A flap pocket is a welt with a cover, and the flap on a jacket was originally there to keep rain out.

The fake pocket — a flap or a line of stitching with no bag behind it — exists to give the appearance without the bulk or the cost, and it is common enough that checking is worthwhile before buying anything you expect to carry things in.

Small survivals

Several pockets in common garments outlived their purpose and stayed. The small pocket set inside the front pocket of a pair of jeans was made for a pocket watch, which is why it sits where a chain would fall. The ticket pocket above the right-hand pocket of some jackets did exactly what its name says, on trains where a ticket was inspected repeatedly.

Sleeve pockets, cargo pockets and chest pockets all arrived from work or military clothing, where hands were occupied and the wearer could not put a bag down. Their placement is entirely practical in origin and largely decorative in a garment worn to an office.

Which is the general lesson from all of this. A pocket records what people needed to carry and what their clothes would tolerate, and both of those change. The pockets in a garment are a fairly reliable indication of what it was originally for, even when the current owner is only carrying a phone.