Every time I get a new suit, the jacket pockets are sewn shut. Why?
If you use the pockets it messes up the way the suit hangs (and it really does on a nice lightweight suit, if the pockets are stretched out it looks like hell) and they figure you can use your pants pockets if need be.
Sometimes they are sewn shut loosely so that they stay flat, but you can easily snip the threads and have a functional pocket if you like. Personally, I think it’s silly to make what could be a functional pocket and then sew it shut. If the thing is there just for show, why not just sew the top flap so it looks like a pocket and not bother with the inside part?
Yeah. The pockets are just for decoration.
Apparently for safety also…although mainly aesthetics
The explanation I heard (from a guy who had worked a long time in a menswear shop) is that if a garment should fall off the rail in transit, the coat hanger would not hook into the pocket of another garment and tear it.
Like Astro said, the pockets are just tacked shut so the jacket doesn’t sag out of shape during the months it waits on a hanger for someone to buy it. Snip the threads with a clear conscience–Savile Row isn’t trying to impose a pocketless existence on you.
and I like Mangetout’s explanation, too–never thought ot that before
Or MLS, not Astro.
Whatever.
So that the purchaser can choose which way he wants it. Me, I like functional pockets. Other people don’t. If they start making them both ways, selection will go down and/or prices will go up. This way, the same suit works for both kinds of people.
The back pockets of most of the slacks I buy are tacked shut. I leave them that way, though, because I’m not putting anything in those pockets anyway.
When I saw the thread title, I thought it said “Why do they sew the straightjacket pockets closed?”, and I thought, "Well, that’s just mean that they put pockets on them at all.