Should I catch a Falling Star

 

I slipped on the dress and knew instantly there was a going to be a problem. The dress was floral and silky and just the thing for the first warm day of the year and that promising blue sky. It fitted me perfectly despite my podgy pasta protuberances and my carrot cake wing flaps. But then as I slipped my hands over the area where my waist and hips were last reputed to be, I realised that the dress, a Laura Ashley, was ideal except for one thing: there were no pockets.

For a woman such as me a lack of pockets is a disaster.

Pockets are the lungs of clothing. They are for the oxygen of modern life when  a hanky, car keys and a five pound note are probably all you need. 

I usually wear The Teenager’s jeans which have  wonderful deep strong male pockets of an incredible depth and into which I can almost sink my entire arms. Pockets are wonderful. They mean you don’t need to carry a cumbersome bag or fret about where it is. Pockets free your hands so you can touch the flower petals and feel the wild grass beneath your fingertips. Having pockets of your own means you don’t need a man by your side with pockets in his jackets for you to slip a few things in. Pockets are liberating.

For me an item of clothing without pockets is a deformed and dead thing. Worse it is ultimately a liability. The trend in women’s clothing over the years has been to reduce pockets in size until they have become vestigial, degenerate and atrophied things. I have trousers where the site of a pocket is marked by a button and a loop of fabric, but there is no pocket hidden beneath. My winter coat has ‘pockets’ in which I can shelter only one finger on each hand. A few items of clothing have ‘pockets’ that have little depth, so that you fear that should you suddenly feel the urge to jump that your ‘pockets’ would instantly silently empty.

I think that the diminution of pockets is a diminution of the power of women. Everyone needs pockets. To deny them to one sex is sexist. Women without pockets may well look decorative, in their figure hugging clothing that hasn’t been bulked out with Lego pieces or seed heads, but they have also been made vulnerable. Hasn’t anyone heard of bag snatchers and muggings?

Still the day called for a dress and I protested to The Teenager about its lack of pockets. I would have liked deep pockets into which I could have slipped a digital camera, a hanky, a couple of notes and my car keys and maybe a pen and a notebook too.

And in the event…

After meeting up with my friends and sitting at a table in the sunshine and drinking a hot chocolate we entered the delightful Coton Manor Gardens. An hour later that I realised my car keys were missing.

We trailed back, and yes! I’d left them on the table where we’d been sitting.

What an idiot.

At the end of our day we sat again at the same table.

Later in the grassy car park we said our goodbyes. When we noticed one of the people from the gardens  walking towards us. She was holding out my Shaun the Sheep purse on its long black string at arm’s length as if it was a despicable thing. It had obviously slipped off my shoulders whilst we’d drunk lemonade and I hadn’t even noticed. I thanked her gratefully.

I had no problem with the hilarity this gave my friends. In fact I delighted in their laughter. However, I could see that I was now regarded by them as being only a few shades away from Doo Lally Land, and a few shakes away from an empty pepper pot. And all because my dress did not have pockets.

I think from now on I shall protest in shops any item’s lack of pockets, and endeavour to only buy and wear items that do have pockets.

Pockets are empowering and should be reinstated in women’s clothing. Signs should proclaim, ‘And it has pockets too!’ Songs should be sung about them. Well, perhaps we don’t need to go as far as that. But for the sake of my sanity alone please, please, fashion designers won’t someone think of the pockets? For if ever I catch a falling star I would need some place to put it.