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Sprocklem | 2 years ago

My understanding is that that was not true of clothing of that era. That being said, the description of the pocket is unclear and it may have been a normal pocket, which would have been built into the folds of the dress so as not to be overtly visible.

ETA: If memory serves, pockets disappeared from women's clothing as skirts became more form-fitting in the 1910s and 1920s.

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thaumasiotes|2 years ago

> If memory serves, pockets disappeared from women's clothing as skirts became more form-fitting in the 1910s and 1920s.

Definitely not true considering this quote from 1899:

> No pocketless people has ever been great since pockets were invented, and the female sex cannot rival us while it is pocketless.

(as quoted from https://www.vox.com/2016/9/19/12865560/politics-of-pockets-s... )

According to the article, female clothing has just never had pockets:

> Once upon a time, everyone carried bags. In the Medieval era, both men and women tied their bags to the waist or wore them suspended from belts; these bags looked very much like Renfaire fanny packs. As the rural world grew more urban and criminals more sophisticated, people cunningly hid their external pockets under layers of clothing to hinder cutpurses; men’s jackets and women’s petticoats were outfitted with little slits that allowed to you access your tied-on pockets through your clothing.

> Only in the late seventeenth century did pockets make their move to become part of men’s clothing, permanently sewn into coats, waistcoats, and trousers; women’s pockets, however, failed to make the same migration. Lacking built-in pockets, women continued to hide their tied-on pockets, which were large, often pendulous bags.

> The French Revolution changed everything. While the mid-eighteenth century lavished in rococo, wide skirts that screamed decadence and wealth in their yards and yards of fabric, the end of the eighteenth century whispered restraint. Skirts pulled in close to the body, the natural waist crept ever upward, and the silhouette thinned to a slender column. This neoclassical look had no room for pouchy pockets, yet women still needed to carry their stuff. The reticule, a small, highly decorated purse, was born — and like a pernicious poltergeist, it has never really gone away.

To hear the article tell it, demanding pockets in their clothing was an early form of women's liberation around the period you describe, but one that failed.