Come my darlings and you shall hear the tale of the middle aged lady and the pocket. Featuring the power suit, sexual harassment, and soupçon of menopause.
Once upon a time, in the 70s, there was a little girl who wanted a floor length prairie dress with flounces and puffed sleeves. Mostly she had rust colored corduroys, jeans that were too short, and hand-me-down shirts from her cousin. But she did get to borrow a long dress from her friend. She wore it to Sunday school and spread it in a perfect circle around her at story time. It had fuchsia flowers and polyester chiffon sleeves. It didn’t have any pockets, but who cares, it was the most beautiful dress in the world.
Now I’m a cranky middle aged lady tossing over my wardrobe: comfy yoga pants? NO Pockets! Cute boho tunic? WTF, no pockets! Going To Court Suit? NOPOCKETSBURNITALLDOWN. The cleansing fire of 40-plus years of fashion and gender trauma is pockets.
Dressing as a femme presenting person is head trip. You spend decades layering on all these expectations: is it attractive? Is it too attractive? Does it make you look like a prude? Does it make you look like a slut? –and why is that bad, exactly–? Is it too much work? Does it look like you put too much work into the look? Is it trendy? Which trend is it? What brand is it? Did I get make up on my blouse? Did I get menstrual blood on my pants?!
I mean sure, when I was growing up boys had some codes too. I don’t know who taught the preppy boys to wear their polo shirts with their collars popped up and the headbanger boys that they were only ever going to wear jeans, big sneakers, and band shirts, but they figured it out somehow. But damn the girl code was complicated. I had no clue and less money, and while I wanted some boys to think I was pretty, I would have been satisfied with people not making fun of me.
Important style milestones included:
- You can get away with taking an Izod alligator off of your cousin’s shirt and sewing it onto a K-mart track suit.
- You cannot get away with wearing a swim suit to a Hawaiian themed party and pretending it is a tropical themed tanktop
- Getting viciously sexually harassed at 13 and never wearing shorts again until well into college
Fortunately I went to a high school where half the kids wore all-black held together with safety pins. Several kids regularly came to school with their hair in full-on foot-tall spiked hawks. No one was going to give me shit for not knowing how to use a hair dryer or a curling iron. I didn’t get bullied, but cute teal eyeliner alone wasn’t bringing the boys to the yard.
In college I stumbled into butch. Being girly was hard work and produced no good results. Butch was a natural segue from theater club stage crew blacks. Wearing army surplus pants, carrying my keys on my belt and my wallet in my hip pocket was safer in public, and women thought I was hot. Guys didn’t think I was hot if I wore black t-shirts with the sleeves rolled up like Bruce Springsteen, and cowboy boots with my overalls, but I felt better. Also overalls, fatigues, and Levis all have pockets. Like five or six pockets even.
Here’s the thing: girl clothes in the late 20th century weren’t comfortable. Girly shoes were shit (no Dansko MaryJanes!). And bras were fucking weird. Your options were department stores where you got “training bras” and your mom got the heavily seamed structured things, or there were fetish-y catalogues like Frederick’s of Hollywood. Victoria’s Secret was just cracking the mainstream. And no one explained anything. There was no social media, just your friends sitting around in the dorm living room passing the Vicky’s catalogue around saying “What the hell is this? Why is she sticking her ass out like that? Her stomach is air brushed! Have you ever seen anyone wear a thong in real life…?”
I seriously thought the reason bras had underwires was a conspiracy by the patriarchy to torture women. I boycotted bras for years. It took me until I was in my 30s to realize the reason bras had underwires is because they actually make a structural difference for women with big tits. I do not have big tits. I could barely claim with a straight face to have a C cup when I was breast feeding. But I get ahead of myself.
I had crash course in bras and femme in my mid to late 20s because I was 1) living with my youngest sister and 2) in professional school and had to learn the lady-professional uniform. Apparently the reason people wear thong underwear, or pantyhose under slacks is to avoid panty lines. Because you can have comfortable underpants or sleek grooming but not both. I was too confused to notice at the time but the kind of sleek slacks that call for a thong or pantyhose to look good? No Pockets.
I’m right in the generation where professional women were branching out of the yuppie uniform of the 1980s: navy suits that aped men’s suits, accessorized with the blouse with the soft bows, the shoulder pads, and close toed pumps carried in your brief case, while you wore tennis shoes on the train. No one in my family was a white color professional though, so I had to learn in the field. I went to my first lawyer job with three suits and 4 shell blouses from the Chadwick’s catalogue, thinking I could and should put them in rotation indefinitely.
It’s more complicated than that.
First of all there’s the problem of role models. When I started working at law firms, a firm pretty much had 20 old white dudes, 10 young white dudes, 4 older middle aged women who had were sociopaths due to having survived law school and early law practice in the 70s or 80s, and a handful of stressed out women closer to my age. My fashion learning curve went like this:
- Stacy? Everyone hates her and she wears real fur to court. Fuck no.
- Pam? She really is wearing the two piece suits in rotation, but she can afford more suits.
- Paula? She has a black polka dotted dress! (go to Ann Taylor and buy black polka dotted dress).
- Maureen? She has a flowered skirt that she wears with her black jacket! I can get one more day out of my black suit jacket! (get flowered skirt and red blouse at next shopping trip).
And so it went. Note none of this vigilant observation covers whether an outfit is comfortable. Also, I was being critiqued regularly in the work place on whether I was “friendly” enough, which was kinda a drag, not gonna lie. Then I had to learn what was acceptable on casual Fridays. And golf weekends. And summer dinners at partner’s houses. (more trips to Ann Taylor for cute sweater sets).
I kinda had a bead on things by my mid 30s, but then I spent about eight years pregnant, nursing, or being smeared by toddler hands (or all three). I did discover somewhere in there that when all else fails, a bra itself is a pocket.
Now I’m over 50, my private sector career cratered, and professional fashion has gone through the pandemic. My eyes have been opened to the truth. I can wear sensible shoes and Eileen Fisher to the office, but pricey shapeless knits don’t have pockets either. Inventing “dress yoga pants” isn’t enough. A man in full lawyer drag has something like six separate functional pockets. A woman has trompe l’oeil slashes in her jacket that are sewn shut.
Fifty and no effs left to give means I can finally prioritize what really matters. I refuse to wear clothes without pockets. I’ve decided to wear homemade aprons and leggings to work. I make aprons with pockets. I have little carpenter aprons made from dish towels. I have a smock made from an old table cloth and a 50s housewife apron made from a cotton bathhouse kimono. I’m cosplaying a combination of my great granny Trudy and a foul mouthed anime gremlin.
Like just about every other woman in my corner of social media pop culture, we want what begins with P and ends with S. Pockets.
rage. creation - joy 