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Ever reach down to put your keys in your pocket only to find out that you have no pockets? Or worse you have a little flapthat looks like it will be a pocket, but in fact there is no actual pocket attached?

Ever try on a button up shirt designed for someone else and have your hands fumble on the buttons because they feel backwards?

Ever looked down at red lines and blisters on your feet and wondered who decided high heels should look so good and feel so bad?

In this episode, I explored the little mysteries of the feminine wardrobe.

Today, I am specifically referring to Europe and North America, even more than in the previous two episodes. Other cultures didn’t necessarily have these same peculiarities. But globalization and mass production have made European clothing the practical choice for many women around the world, so these mysteries have become fairly global, even if a culture was smart enough not to invent them for themselves.

Where Are the Pockets?

Before pockets, both men and women carried small items by tying them to their girdle or belt. These items could include a money pouch, a rosary, keys, an eating knife, or even a book.

A girdle book was a small, compact volume where the leather binding actually stretched out way beyond the pages in a long tail, with a knot for attaching it to the belt. Subjects ranged from the religious Book of Hours to spicy love poetry.

The word pocket originally referred to a little pouch you hung on your belt. It wasn’t part of the clothes. Both men and women wore them, but obviously, hanging your pocket out for everyone to see was an invitation to theft.

In the mid-16th century, tailors started sewing the pockets directly onto the hose or breeches or coats for men. Why were women left out? Well, because they didn’t need their pockets sewn in. They were still wearing those voluminous skirts (sometimes ridiculously voluminous), and the one practical thing about those styles was that it left plenty of room for you to hang your pocket on the inside.

Obviously, you don’t want to lift your skirts up to your waist every time you need to access your money, so those dresses had a little placket hole in the waist or side seam. It isn’t often visible in the paintings, but when a lady needed an item, she could just slip her hand in and grab what she needed.

These ladies’ pockets carried far more than my jeans do. The essayist Leigh Hunt described an old lady’s pockets as containing a pocketbook, a bunch of keys, a needle case, a spectacle case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a smelling bottle, and an orange or apple (Hunt, 42).

You can tell that this pocket is not so much the precursor of what we call a pocket, as it is a precursor of the modern purse or handbag—and a much roomier one than mine. Fortunately, I have never yet felt the need to carry any emergency nutmeg with me when I leave the house.

Try putting that quantity of stuff in a man’s pocket, and you’ll realize why women weren’t clamoring for built-in pockets. They already had a much superior solution. Not only did it hold more, but they could also keep their belongings in the same pocket and wear it every day, regardless of what dress they were wearing.

Many of these pockets were exquisitely beautiful. Girls practiced their needlework by sewing and embroidering pockets. Sometimes they were given as gifts. And if you remember the nursery rhyme “Lucy Locket Has Lost Her Pocket,” that’s how she could lose it: it wasn’t attached.

All this worked reasonably well until the Regency era, when dresses went from full and voluminous to loosely falling from just below the bust. There was obviously no place for the large pocket of previous eras to hang, not without ruining the draping Neoclassical lines.

The answer was the reticule, a small handbag closed with a drawstring. The reticule was nowhere near as practical as the previous pockets had been. Your hands were not free, it didn’t hold as much, and it was easily lost or stolen.

A waist-tie pocket was only for safety while traveling, much like a money belt today.

As the 19th century progressed, skirts ballooned back out, making room for the more traditional pocket. But handbags of various sorts didn’t go away either. And in the mid-19th century, we finally see sewing patterns for having pockets sewn directly into dresses for the first time, right alongside sewing patterns for the familiar tie-on pockets.

Some went into the skirt, but your bodice might have a special pocket for a pocket watch, just like the men’s vests.

If you were a lower- or middle-class woman, your dress might not have pockets, but you probably spent a fair amount of time with an apron over your dress anyway. And the apron may very well have had pockets, either sewn on top or tied on underneath.

We see lots of pictures of women and girls in beautiful, frilly white aprons, and it looks like a fashion statement. But for many, many women, it was a strictly functional item, as they tended fires, beat the dirt out of carpets, and scrubbed the laundry. Functional items have pockets.

At the end of the 19th century, bicycling was in, and the practicalities of cycling and long skirts had begun making inroads into women’s apparel in multiple ways, including in the use of the pocket.

One award-winning cycling costume design included pockets in multiple places, including under the skirt, and “sufficiently large to carry all the luggage a lady might require if she intended to stay the night at the end of her journey.”

My mind boggles a little at that description. Sadly, there is no picture to explain just how much space was deemed necessary for an overnight stay.

Other bicycle costumes even included a special pocket for a pistol.

By the 1950s, wearing an apron over your house dress was out, which was probably a testament to how much easier housework became in a world with electric stoves, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines. But a woman at home still needed a place to store clothespins, thimbles, and shopping lists, so the pockets were lifted off the apron and reappeared on the house dress.

The initial pants women wore also had large pockets, for the obvious reason that the pants were really men’s pants and were worn for factory work. But those glamorous pants in the 1960s, the ones we talked about in the first episode, worn by the likes of Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn? Yeah, those were much less likely to have pocket. Not big, roomy ones, anyway. They weren’t meant to be functional. They were meant to be beautiful and, most importantly, fitted. We certainly wouldn’t want a bulge ruining those beautiful curves.

The standard answer in fashion now is that pockets are forbidden if the pocket would spoil the smooth line of the garment, but they do show up in fuller skirts and outerwear. My own experience with clothes suggests that there are plenty of clothes that would look fine with a pocket but still don’t have them. I’m also not entirely sure why the line of men’s clothes is apparently of less concern.

There is, however, another explanation of pocket inequality, and that is explained by Diana Vreeland, who was editor of Vogue magazine from 1963 to 1971. One day, in a fit of artistic enthusiasm, she announced to her staff that the magazine would now champion pockets for women and usher in a glorious future where all hands and shoulders are free and unencumbered with bags.

But she abandoned her vision before getting started. Why? Because the magazine’s accountants showed her how much of Vogue‘s revenue came from the handbag industry.

Personally, I’m not sure what’s wrong with having pockets and a handbag.

Why are women’s buttons on the left side of the shirt, while men’s are on the right?

The short answer is tradition. How did the tradition get started? We don’t know, but there are a few theories.

Before we begin, though, a little orientation. I found most of the sources on this utterly baffling because they didn’t define whether they meant right and left according to the person wearing the shirt or according to a person looking at the shirt. So, to be clear, I’m orienting around the person wearing the shirt.

I repeat: Why are women’s buttons on the left side of the shirt, while men’s are on the right?

Theory #1: Because the Bible says so.

Actually, the Bible doesn’t mention the word button, and that’s because buttons hadn’t yet been invented when it was written down. But it does say:

“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.” (Deuteronomy 22:5).

We for sure don’t want to be an abomination, so we have to button our shirts differently to make it clear that our shirts don’t pertain to the wrong gender.

Or, if you don’t like that one…

Theory #2: The Hired Help

Buttons start appearing on clothing in the 1200s.

Prior to that, if you wanted a snug fit, you had to have a maid or an obliging friend lace you in, or possibly actually sew you into your clothes. Buttons are so much easier—and also more expensive. So any woman wearing them probably still had a maid helping her get dressed, probably a right-handed maid. Therefore, the buttons were held in the maid’s dominant hand.

But you ask, why didn’t the rich men also have a manservant helping them get dressed in the morning? Well, that brings us to the next theory.

Theory #3: Concealed Weapons.

Everyone of every gender had the buttons on the left until men started to carry concealed weapons. Then they wanted the buttons to favor their own dominant hand in case they had to whip their weapon out in a hurry.

This again sounds plausible, except that I suspect that concealed weapons are as old as clothing itself—certainly older than buttons.

Theory #4: Women Are Awesome

This one is my personal favorite.

Traditionally, the right hand symbolizes everything clean, good, and wonderful in the world, while the left hand symbolizes everything dirty, wicked, and deplorable. Hasidic Jewish men sometimes do wear caftans with the buttons on the left so that the right part of the shirt overlaps, symbolizing the victory of good over evil.

Therefore, we women of the modern world are superheroes, winning the battle against evil. The men we love and cherish? Yeah, they’re not winning.

Theory #5: Unconcealed Weapons

Last but not least, everyone originally buttoned right over left. When knights charged each other, the lances mostly struck the left side of the plate armor. Therefore, the joint between the plates of the armor had to overlap on the right side so that the lance would slide off easily on the left side and not risk getting stuck in the joint.

If none of these theories sound particularly convincing, I am right there with you. And the real answer still is: tradition.

Why Do Women Torture Themselves with Heels?

I started researching this question and learned that it was the wrong question. The real question is: Why don’t men torture themselves with heels?

The original inventor of the heel will be forever unknown, but it’s not a European invention. It was worn in Western Asia for centuries and brought by them to Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

This heel was not a purely decorative torture device. It had a useful function for men: it anchored the foot in a stirrup, an important consideration for men in the military. When Europeans got the heel, they were hooked—not just for its functionality, but also the height and prowess it implied.

No less a man than Louis the 14th, the Sun King of France, wore heels—and red ones in particular. A red heel was a symbol of political power. The shoe itself may have been black or creamy brocade, but the heel was red.

Across the Channel, the Englishmen were wearing heels too, even when they were just relaxing at home, though at least their heel was a sturdy, wide one.

The 17th century saw a split in the way men expressed their masculinity. One path lay in the tradition of Louis the 14th, exemplified by flaunting wealth and power through attention to fashion, including color, lace, and feathers. The other path lay in the hardworking man of action, the sort who was too busy working, thinking, and exercising newly discovered political rights to mess around with bright colors and lace.

The leather boot worn by the man of action kept its heels and even increased their height, but heels covered with fine fabric became women’s wear, fit only for those who had nothing better to do than look ornamental.

As the 18th century progressed, simplified dress became the norm for men, to the point that those who wore the red heels were criticized as fops and dandies. By the end of the 18th century, if a man wore a heel at all, it was probably a low one.

This was an obvious disadvantage for short men who wanted to use the heel to prove their manliness through height. Indeed, heels still could be worn as long as they were hidden. An 1830s guide to dress suggests that short men wear heels, but make sure that their trousers are long enough to obscure the fact.

The one place where men could still wear heels without criticism was exactly where they were most functional: on horseback. All those macho cowboys galloping around the American West in the 19th century—their boots had heels, and so do cowboy boots for men today.

For those not on horseback, the heel serves another function: it lifts you up out of the muck. And a platform shoe does it even better than a traditional heel.

Concrete and asphalt are recent phenomena. Prior to that, most roads were generally made of dirt, which became muddy every time it rained. Add to that the lack of municipal garbage pickup, the ubiquitous presence of animals, and the practice of emptying the chamber pots from the second-story windows, and you can appreciate that walking down the street could be a harrowing experience.

One solution was to wear one shoe outdoors and a different shoe indoors, much like modern businesswomen who commute in something sensible and keep their pumps in their handbag.

Another solution was to wear an overshoe when you went outside. A patten was a common type of overshoe from the 14th to 19th centuries. It was made of leather, wood, or iron and lifted you up a couple of inches. Both men and women wore them.

High heels went out of fashion at the end of the 1700s, even for women, and when they reappeared in the middle of the 19th century, they were very definitely a woman’s fashion item.

Suffragettes wore heels on purpose to express their femininity, making it clear that wanting the vote did not mean they were unnaturally masculine.

High heels for evening wear became especially popular in the 1920s. The four-inch spike was common by the 1950s.

Shoemakers of the past had faced technical problems with heels, as making it too high and too thin meant it was liable to snap under a woman’s weight. But thanks to war-driven technological advances, the heel could now be made of steel, meaning it could rise to new heights and ridiculous thinness. Stiletto heels have never really gone away since.

The Smithsonian’s Fashion: The Definitive Visual Guide gives a full double-page layout on 400 years of women’s footwear, and there is actually only one shoe on it that doesn’t include a heel. It’s an English wedding boot from about 1860.

So, if you put on heels this morning, you are carrying on a very long-standing tradition.

The Peacock Revolution in the 1960s tried to reclaim men’s right to dress extravagantly, including on their feet. John Lennon wore heels. Various disco and punk stars have worn heels, as have their adoring devotees. But despite various attempts in the past half-century, men in heels were generally dismissed as either attention-seeking or gender-bending. Despite the fact that our culture says men should be tall, using heels to achieve that height tends to be seen as more embarrassing than simply being short.

The art and fashion historian Quentin Bell has written that “perhaps the most effectual guarantee of social standing is obtained by means of unpractical footwear.”

If so, then bring on the stiletto.

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Selected Sources

One of many sources I used for this episode was Tim Gunn’s Fashion Bible: The Fascinating History of Everything in Your Closet. It’s an entertaining read, but be warned. It’s light on history, and heavy on sharply worded opinions. Let’s just say that if this is the bible, then my wardrobe and I can look forward to a long eternity of fire and brimstone.

London’s Victoria and Albert Museum has an article on the history of pockets. Google’s Arts and Culture site has an interesting presentation on the history of men in heels.

Featured image by StockSnap from Pixabay