And It Has Pockets!

How often have you heard someone wearing women’s clothing exclaim, “And it has pockets!” Comparisons have shown that modern garments designed for women have about half the storage space of clothing designed for men. From their invention, pockets in women’s fashion have represented independence—so much so that in the 18th century, laws were enacted to strip women of their personal liberty by making the contents of their pockets the property of their husbands. The right to have pockets went hand-in-hand with the right to vote. And people today are still speaking out about the inequality between men’s and women’s clothing based on this simple storage system.

Join costume designer Diane Johnston to dig into the pockets of the past, tracing the history of the humble pocket to determine if the battle for equality may still be decided by a few inches of extremely influential fabric.