Special hell

[ladyofastolat]

You know Shepherd Book's thing about the special hell reserved for people who talk in the theatre? Forget talking in the theatre! The special hell needs to be reserved for designers who think that fake pockets are a good idea.

Yes, I know I've ranted about this before, but fake pockets? FAKE POCKETS? WHY? I have been told that garments hang better and travel better if pockets are sewn up, so I can perhaps, and very grudgingly, accept that there might be a slight justification for sewing up pockets in garments destined for a life of stardom as a catwalk or catalogue model. But I'm talking about cheap, functional garments that will never look glamorous. I'm talking about garments that don't have pockets at all, merely useless little flaps - not even decorative ones, but boring, barely visible ones - that look as if they belong to pockets, but don't. WHY? WHY? If there was no pocket at all, perhaps I could learn to live with it; I do, after all, possess pocketless skirts and dresses. But why go to the effort of adding a useless little fake pocket opening unless you're doing it purely to deceive and enrage? Your eyes think there's a pocket there. Experience from other trousers tells you there'll be a pocket there. The useless little flap of fabric draws your fingers into it, only to make them come up short.

I have been told that men's trousers are immune from this plague. However, strangely, I have never yet heard a woman say, "Oh, I am SO overwhelmed today. I've got 4 pockets on my trousers, and it's such a lot to think about. If only two of them were fake!"

Give us trousers without pockets for those who want them. Give us trousers with pockets for those who want them. But don't give us trousers that say, "Hey, look at me! I've got 4 lovely pockets!" only to reveal once you've got them home that two of them are WICKED LIES!

And, yes, I KNOW that the moral of this story is "don't hastily buy trousers without checking the pocket situation," and "don't assume that, just because a pair of trousers appears to be UTTERLY IDENTICAL to the pair you bought from the same shop last year, it really IS utterly identical, and hasn't replaced perfectly functional pockets with fakes."

AND while I'm busy ranting about trousers... I'm five foot five and a bit, which is round about the average height for women in the UK. Something is very wrong in the world of women's trousers if trousers marked as "short" are 2 inches too long for me. Last year's pocket-rich well-nigh-identical-but-not pair were also "short" and exactly right. I suspect them of taking the fabric they saved from the pockets and sticking it on the hems.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I am five foot three and have short legs. So much so that I have had to cut three or four inches off every pair of 'short' trousers I have bought over the past few years. I am wearing the first pair that I haven't had to cut. Why? Because they are actually meant to finish half way up my calves.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

"Short" normally works for me, but in this case, "short" seems to be some inches longer than normal. But I suppose I should give them some credit for trying, at least. A lot of trousers still only come in a single standard length. They accept that women vary in their waist, hip and bust size, but they never seem to allow for enough variation in leg length.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

I'm 5'2 and a bit leggy, but have roughly the same problem.

Old Navy is the only brand I know whose short will be roughly the right size. It used to be exactly right, falling a fraction of an inch above the ground at the heel of my lowest flats, but they increased the length by a teeny amount and now they just touch the ground and wick water up the legs when it's wet. Bah!

Anyhow, you might try Old Navy, their lengths might be right for you.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Useful info.

[timetiger.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm with you there. My trousers must have pockets -- left side for my wallet, right side for keys and coins. It's long since become second nature. Tricky trousers that only pretend to have pockets?Madness!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

At least these ones have consented to give me sensible front pockets, which are the most useful ones. It's the back pockets that are fake. I don't actually use my back pockets for stuff, but I've been discovering all day that I often slip a hand into a back pocket while standing around idle. It's been driving me mad not having them there!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I think it's women's clothing. Samuel R. Delany tells a story in one of his essays about the time his wife, Marilyn Hacker, got soaked by rain coming home, and put on a pair of his trousers since that was what they had clean, and was totally astonished by the roomy, comfortable pockets. Delany's point was how unaware we are of the cultural restrictions we live under.

For my part as a man, I need my large pockets because they're the only place I have to carry the things that women put in purses.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

It could, of course, work the other way round: that women are only forced to reluctantly carry handbags around because their clothes don't provide them with sufficient pockets. I only carry a handbag for less than half of my trips outside, and that's usually because I've deliberately chosen one big enough to carry a Kindle and a paperback book. If I don't need a book, I prefer to go without my handbag and use pockets for what I need.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

And being a woman who can't comfortably carry a purse is a real pain in the butt. I can't carry it on my left shoulder because I've injured that shoulder too often and it doesn't carry anything well. I can't wear it on my right shoulder straight down because it'll fall off because my right hand is resting on my service dog's harness, which lowers my shoulder slightly. I can't wear it cross-body because I've messed up my neck.

And I have no pockets of reasonable size to put anything into.

I've gotten used to sticking everything but my phone in my dog's harness. I'm dreading the day I have to get a new phone, because they've gotten far too big to fit in my pockets - my current phone's screen is a little over 3"! And I sure as hell don't want to put it in my dog's harness, because dogs do things like, oh, violently shake and knock into things.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

That sounds horribly awkward. I hate carrying things on one shoulder - my shoulder and neck muscles keep threatening to go into cramp if I do so - but would be lost without cross-body bags. (Right shoulder to left hip. If, in a fit of distraction, I put it on the wrong way round, the entire world feels wrong.)

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

It's definitely annoying. If my dog's harness didn't have fairly large pouches that zip securely shut, I don't know what I'd do.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

Very much agreeing. My shoulders are messed up, so shoulder purses don't work. Waist purses worked for years, but then -shingles- and post herpetic neuralgia means no belts or belt purses any more. So it's pockets now, because even the stripped-down contents of a purse can't be 'cleavage carried'.

[leesa_perrie]

Yes and yes again! Also on the 'short' trouser thing!!

Oh, and inside pockets on coats. I've got one coat that has one of these and it's great for my mobile, but most women's coats don't have them! Why? I know we have handbags, but when I put my mobile phone in my bag, I often don't hear it. I always hear it when it's in my inside pocket - but that's just a summer thing, as my winter coat doesn't have one! *mutters*

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I just slip mine into an outer coat pocket, where it shares space with keys, money and too many other things, so I haven't actually looked for inside pockets. But when I'm carrying my handbag, my phone lives in a special dedicated little pocket at the top of one of the main compartments. I need a new phone, and I don't really care what phone I get, as long as it fits in this special pocket.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

There must have been a law passed that forbids women to have useful pockets in their garments - why else would every single manufacturer of women's trousers in the UK suddenly stop putting proper pockets in trousers?

Fake pockets just add insult to injury.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

It just makes no sense. Last year's cheap black linen trousers from Sainsbury's had real pockets, and this year's don't. Have women changed over the course of 12 months? Have we suddenly become creatures who can't cope with pockets? I can't even attribute it to the vagaries of fashion, since fashion is all about appearance, and real pockets and fake pockets look exactly the same.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

...I'm terribly jealous that cheap cot/lin trousers are a commonly available thing over there! They're annoyingly hard to find on this side of the pond, unless one wants to pay a good bit more than I care to most of the time.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

They seem to appear in our shops every year round about March or April, ready for summer holidays. (Anyone trying to buy them in November is doomed to failure.) My problem is that I wear them a LOT, including on long walks, so the fabric between the legs tends to wear through. The very cheap ones I bought last spring - a supermarket's own brand - have actually lasted a LOT better than the slightly more expensive ones I bought from elsewhere, which wore into holes within months.