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According to a 2018 study by The Pudding, the front pockets on women’s jeans are on average 48 per cent shorter and 6.5 per cent narrower than they are on men’s jeans.

You see, since the ’50s, there has been a role reversal of sorts in the fashion industry. Handbags, which started as a convenient accessory and a fun extension of an apparel brand, are major money-makers for many luxury brands. According to Fortune Business Insights, in 2022, the North American handbag market was valued at $16.3 billion. By 2030, that number is projected to grow to $26.47 billion.

A former designer assistant at McQueen, who wishes to remain anonymous, muses that with so much money at stake, clothing could now almost be considered an accessory to the handbags. “When Tom Ford debuted his first collection for Gucci in the ’90s, almost every single look had a handbag to go with it,” they point out. “Since then, ready-to-wear and purses have gone hand in hand.”

Fellow Canadian designers Eliza Faulkner (formerly of Erdem, Roland Mouret and Zandra Rhodes and now creative director of her own brand) and Caffery Vanhorne (who worked at an undisclosed luxury house) echo our anonymous source, with Faulkner reiterating that “brands make money off accessories, not clothes.” Vanhorne also admits that he has witnessed seasons where “more than half the clothes shown on the runway never went to production — they were just to showcase bags.”

What does this mean for our original question: Do brands purposely exclude pockets in women’s clothing so women will be more likely to support the purse industry? Well, it doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines above. To quote the great philosophers known as ABBA, it all comes down to “money, money, money.”

Like J.Lo gaslighting us into believing that her and Ben Affleck’s relationship history was “the greatest love story never told,” the handbag industry essentially barged in and seduced women into believing that the purse was the answer to all their portable needs. The only obstacle in their way? The pocket.

By that logic, as long as women are denied pockets, they would be forced to spend more money on bags and thus an entire industry could be sustained by reducing the size of pouches or excluding them from women’s clothing.

Capitalism forced small pockets in women's clothing.