Why the Pockets on Women’s Jeans Are So Small (Especially the Tiny One)
A denim designer answers the questions we’ve been wondering all these years.
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Here’s a short list of things that could be bigger: our bank accounts, our apartments, and the pockets of our jeans. Anyone who wears clothes typically made for women knows about these practically microscopic pockets. You can fit a lipstick and maybe a few folded-up bills, but not much else.
We could definitely use the extra space. Just think of all the stuff we carry around. Our work bags are as full as Mary Poppins', our wallets double as clutches, and we somehow still stash no fewer than three beauty products in our ever-shrinking purses. (Side note: Why are handbags so small these days, too?) And then there are all the things we carry for other people, such as our kids. We tend to need a lot of things with us, so why are jean pockets so small? We got to the bottom of it.
Why Are Women’s Jean Pockets So Small?
You can thank 15 years or so of skinny jean supremacy for the current small pockets. These days, looser-fit jeans are all the rage, but that’s a recent development. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, the hemlines on our jeans have released the grip they had on our ankle area. In some cases, roomier pockets have come along with them. But there’s still catching up to do, and it’s in part because of how popular skinny-fit jeans were.
Jill Guenza, global VP of women’s design at Levi’s, confirms that the smaller pockets were a side effect of those figure-skimming cuts. “Back when skinny jeans and the super-tight fit [were] trending, we used to shorten the pocket bags and hide the hem under the hip crease so that you couldn’t see them through the skintight jeans,” she explains. Pocket space was sacrificed for the sake of the silhouette. “The goal was a streamlined, sleek look through the legs.”
As jeans have gotten baggier and hemlines looser, some women’s jeans pockets are also following suit. They actually have some extra room now. As Guenza explains, the trends have caused denim brands like Levi’s to adjust the way they design their pockets. “We’ve developed our iconic styles with satisfyingly deep pockets that hold big phones and anything else one might want to carry on a night out or a trip to the corner store,” she says.
There you have it: Pockets get smaller as jeans get tighter, but they trend deeper once the fit is looser. Now, it’s up to clothing designers to sort out how to get deeper pockets to work on figure-hugging styles for when skinny jeans make their inevitable comeback.
What Is the Tiny Pocket For?
One tiny jeans pocket we’d like to keep, though? That really, really small bonus one that typically appears just above one of your front pockets. It fits almost nothing, but the random things it does fit — like coat check tickets — are always safe in there. But why is it there in the first place? Turns out, that teeny-tiny pocket has some history. According to Levi’s historian Tracey Panek, it’s a throwback to the days of pocket watches. "The tiny front right pocket in the 501 jean was created for a pocket watch, a common 19th-century accessory,” she says. “[It] was an original element of our earliest Levi’s.”
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