FROM THE HEART WITH GINI RIFKIN: What's in your Pocket?

Saturday, June 8, 2024

What's in your Pocket?

There are hot pockets, pill pockets, even Lacrosse pockets, but what about the ones in your clothing?

I'm so glad pockets are finally more routinely included in women's clothing. Still always use more of them, and the idea started long ago with the pouch-pocket theory.

Ancient people used leather or cloth pouches to hold valuables, the forerunner of the pocket. Even Ötzi (also called the "Iceman"), who lived around 3,300 BCE, had a belt with a pouch sewn to it that contained a cache of useful items: a scraper, drill, flint flake, bone awl, and a dried tinder fungus.

According to historian Rebecca Unsworth, it was in the late 15th century that pockets became more noticeable. The pockets began by being hung like purses from a belt accessible through a slit in the outer garment. Being concealed beneath a coat or jerkin, help to discourage pickpocketing.

The word pocket appears in Middle English, and is taken from a Norman diminutive of Old French poke, pouque, or pouch. The form "poke" is now only used in dialect, or in such proverbial sayings as "a pig in a poke".

Historically, the term "pocket" referred to a pouch worn around the waist by women, as mentioned in the rhyme Lucy Locket. In these pockets, women would carry items needed in their daily lives, such as scissors, pins and needles, and keys.

Lucy Locket lost her pocket.

Kitty Fisher found it;

Not a penny was there in it,

Only ribbon round it.

The rhyme was first noted by James Orchard Halliwell in 1842 (Some accountings hint at Lucy and Kitty being rival courtesans of the time of Charles II", making it a much older and more interesting nursery rhyme)

In the 17th century, pockets began to be sewn into men's clothing, but not women's. In more modern clothing, women still sometimes have a Potemkin pocket, which is a fake slit sewn shut.

A watch pocket or fob pocket is a small pocket designed to hold a pocket watch, in men's trousers and waistcoats and found in traditional blue jeans.

Thank you Reader's Digest

A besom pocket or slit pocket is cut into a garment instead of being sewn on. often with reinforced stitching. Besom pockets are found on a tuxedo jacket or trousers and may be accented with a flap or button closure.

Camp pockets or cargo pockets are sewn to the outside of the garment. They are usually squared off and are characterized by seaming.

During Prohibition hip pockets became a handy place for hiding flasks and this practice contributed to the curved shape of the vessel to fit snuggly against the body and be less obvious. Supposedly, people who wore hip flasks became known as hipsters and thus the term was born.