Methinks that the only real issue is at an wards show or Hollywood premier, with dresses that costs thousand.
Cher and Raquel Welch did a skit/song on this singing “I’m a Woman”
But not quite identical.
Some of you have made the mistake of thinking the fashion industry operates on rational principles. It does not. The whole industry is geared to making people want to buy whatever is supposed to be in style this month. It’s not based on what people want or ask for. There are other things that would be profitable, but the fashion industry either ignores them or makes a few and doesn’t let anyone know, so no one buys them and then the industry calls it a failure.
As other people have said before, it’s really about the cost of fabric for the pockets. If pockets do exist, they will probably be made out of the cheapest fabric possible, which doesn’t hang right and rips if you try to put anything in them.
Yeah, idk, I have heard the “ruins the line” line from multiple women, when explaining why they don’t buy clothes with pockets. And I am the sort of person who crams as much into my pockets as will fit, so yeah, my pockets do always look bulged out and I can see it’s not as attractive as if I left them empty. Fortunately I work in tech and having bulgy pockets is better for my professional reputation than looking sleek and put together 
Anyway, I now get all my clothes from eShakti (dresses) and LL Bean (pants) for this very reason: because (usually, though I have to always read carefully for exceptions) most of their clothes have POCKETS (eShakti in particular specializes in dresses that have a relatively large amount of drapey fabric in the lower half, so that the pockets don’t affect the drape). And LL Bean also carries higher-waisted pants, which I also need. Note that these two places are not cheap! (Not expensive fashion, either, but you’re definitely paying more than you would for fast fashion.)
But if it weren’t for those two places, yeah, I’d probably have to buy pocketless and get them put in aftermarket.
Maybe the National Costumer’s Association could help with this kind of thing?
Or The Costume Gallery Research Library:
Also, Sense and Sensibility Patterns has a great list of links:
But might still be cheaper in the long run, if they last longer.
This, I think, extends way beyond pockets. Often, expectations on how women should dress/act etc. are pinned on ‘society’ (i.e. ‘Society’ dictates that women must [xyz…]). Because of the patriarchy, society is completely controlled by men; therefore, all societal expectations and demands of women are in place because of the all-powerful, sexist, sex-obsessed, women-hating men-folk. In other words, men are why we can’t have nice things - in this case, dresses with pockets.
I take issue with this line of reasoning on a few different fronts. But it’s probably easier to observe that I have never thought - nor heard any other man expressing the thought - that “She’d be way hotter if I couldn’t see her phone bulge coming out of her skirt”. Just like I have very rarely ever thought “I’m not sure if that eye-shadow perfectly matches her skin tone…” or “Wasn’t she wearing those same shoes yesterday!?” or “OMFG, she’s wearing an anklet? in November!?”.
Indeed, I would posit that mostly women dress for themselves and for other women (sometimes in the spirit of solidarity, and sometimes competition), not to cater to (or appease) the male gaze. If all women cared about, after all, was looking good for men (and if men had complete dominion over how women dressed) - mostly, they wouldn’t wear any clothes at all.
(apologies for the heteronormativity throughout)
First, whether a woman looks hotter without an awkward bulge is independent of whether men gossip about it. A viewer might not even be consciously aware that the eye shadow is the wrong color, but nonetheless be affected by that.
Second, it’s largely women who enforce women’s dress code, but that doesn’t mean the dress code isn’t very heavily influenced by women’s awareness of male gaze.
When people complain about the impact of “the patriarchy” it’s more about things being designed FOR men than BY men.
It’s mostly women who enforce FGM, but that doesn’t mean it’s not all on the patriarchy. Same-same with pocketless dresses.
I do not know the precise origin of such tropes, but while in some contexts it is “acceptable” for a male billionaire CEO/successful academic to appear indistinguishable from an unkempt hobo sleeping rough, or at least dress casually, women are supposed to “dress for success”, including fashionable and expensive items, and are supposed to appear sexy and desirable [cf. the “male gaze”]. Perhaps the rules change, for women too, if you have already “made it” to the top and everybody is in awe of you, in which case you can wear whatever you want.
No.
Women have society’s expectations forcing them into certain dress codes.
I could turn up at work wearing shorts and a t-shirt (I regularly don’t wear shoes, too) but for some reason women are held to a higher standard.
Even with the “work from home” thing - I work in IT and hence online - the women with whom I work are better dressed than my male colleagues.
(Except for one. But he is an eccentric anomaly)
What I think you’re missing here, as other posters have noted, is the fact that aesthetic standards of acceptable appearance for women have a built-in skew toward pleasing the male gaze. Even when men aren’t the ones directly promoting or enforcing such standards, they’re the ones for whose benefit the standards exist in the first place.
Even when men are covertly bragging about how oblivious they personally are to the aesthetic details of female appearance standards (and by extension, bragging about how they’re too manly to even notice any of that frivolous girly stuff), the fundamental reason that those standards exist is still that women have traditionally been expected to strongly prioritize being visually pleasing to men.
This is an example, IMHO, of the classic Societal Oppression Catch-22, in which oppression is entrenched by setting up societal structures that pressure members of the oppressed group to behave in a certain way, and then mocking them for complying with the behavioral expectations. Usually the mocking is done by the very people for whose benefit the oppression was instituted in the first place, and who in the meantime have come to view this behavior as just a “natural” defect in the oppressed group. For example:
Patriarchal society: “Women are not intended to have lucrative careers or professional achievements or influential status. Those roles belong to men, who confer their benefits on the women they marry.”
Women: (channel their personal ambitions for wealth and status into obtaining wealthy high-status husbands)
Men: “OMG women are so shallow and heartless! They run after wealthy marital prospects and ignore decent guys who aren’t rich!”
Similarly:
Slaveholding society: “Slaves are not entitled to autonomy or rights, and any indications on their part of serious thought, attempts at self-education, dissatisfaction with their lot, etc., should be harshly discouraged because they may well lead to rebellion and violence.”
Enslaved people: (cultivate submissive cheerful unintelligent demeanour to avoid punishment for “uppityness”)
Enslavers: “Sheesh, these slaves are just like children, so naturally happy and foolish! How unfit they would be to look after themselves!”
And countless other examples. In this particular case, we have
Patriarchal society: “It’s very important for women to be physically attractive and visually pleasing to men, and their degree of social approval largely depends on this attractiveness.”
Women: (develop and uphold conventional standards of clothing styles, cosmetic use, etc., to accentuate their physical attractiveness)
Men: “Wow, women are so frivolous and fussy about their obsession with ‘fashion’, I hardly ever even notice what a woman’s wearing but they seem to consider it such a big deal!”
Can confirm, it’s the same in my “office” (which is in-person 2 days a week). Except one woman who’s very much in the tomboy/jolly hockeysticks mold and dresses like a typical young engineer (shorts and slops). But even she is made-up and neat in a way most of the guys are not.
In my office, there’s two - me and the sapeur.
Do you see any of them below the shoulders? In my office, the dress code pretty much dissolved for both sexes with work from home. And online, i heard an awful lot of women talking about needing to get fresh makeup to return to the office. Because the resolution of video calls generally doesn’t show the difference.
Sometimes, yes. People get up and walk around, etc.
The make-up etc, I was talking about in the office, though.
we mostly use fake or blurred backgrounds, and mostly stay seated during teleconferences. I have a friend who didn’t tell anyone she was (very) pregnant until the day before an on-site.
I wear a suit to work once a year, on October 13
I used to live in Observatory, Cape Town, and occasionally would see a sapeur gliding along, effortlessly glamorous and equally out of place. I applaud these men and women for their style.
We do Casual Day in Sep. as Formal Day, since most of the office are casual the rest of the year anyway.
Me, I dress cottagecore or hobbitcore or dark academia or mori boy, mostly, so waistcoats or jerseys and shirts and not-shorts-or-blue-jeans are my usual mode.
I still do.
We’ve probably met, in that case.
My “posh” suit I had hand made in India, in Jaipur. It was clearly a rip-off, as the taxi driver suggested the tailor, and he obviously got kickbacks for doing so. It was still only ₹ 9480.51 INR (USD$110.07) which also included a discount silk sari for my wife. I was totally happy to pay the price.
The sari, obviously does not have pockets. The suit jacket does but they are really unusable (aside from the poncy handkerchief which matched my tie for the left breast pocket. The pants are fairly normal, so keys, a phone and a wallet are fine in there.
My less posh suits I bought in second hand shops, generally tailored for bigger gentlemen than I so I often had to have someone do some seamwork, though as I age I might need that undone. If they survive Afrika Burn… my tuxedo has not had that luck.
Pockets are very utilitarian but not at all flattering or alluring. Dresses without pockets hug the figure and make a much more attractive look. Have you ever watched Cheryl Scott, the Chicago ABC weather lady? That’s the way she dresses, which is why we have almost identical tastes in clothes.
If I want pockets, I wear pants, which is what I wear to work unless there is some special event at school that brings guests to our school, mostly parents/grandparents. Yesterday, we had our Black History Month school wide presentation, so I dressed to be attractive and not utilitarian. I just couldn’t carry anything around with me! LOL
Nice, I like it, but yeah, not really space for pockets.