Pockets (from Here For The History)
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Siis olit sä tulossa tänne äänialiahoitoa. Täälka jengi olema jo ihan taajuuksilla. Joo, sori. Tuli taas hirveä sätöne sähkösoppareiden ja puheliliittomien kanssa. Eikä. En varmaan pääsen nyt. Hei, sulla oomilta kaikki. Ei todellakaan ole mitään säätöä. Nyt näen varten päästä. Ota omista ja asioi ilman säätöä. Oomi. Hei, tänään sali päivä! Jalat vuorossa! Aivan. Sorti. Pirveäsän sähkösumppareiden ja puoliliitten kanssa. Äikä! Joo, niin varmaan pääsen. Hei sulla oomilta liittymättä! Ei niiden kanssa ole mitään säätöä. Salille! Ota ohisti ja hoida sähkö ja puolin liittyman asiat ilman säätöä. Pallo on edelleen pelissä, kun jännitys nousee yläilmoihin asti ja DNA pistää taas parastaan.
Sieltä saadaan timantinen syötto, kun lautasella nimittäin paljoliikaa! Viaalilla! DNA-asiakasetu hintaan. Ahjaita on mua! Nein, suah. Elämä on.
Hello, In Our Time listeners. What an honour it is to be dropping into your feed while Misha Glenny takes a well-earned summer break. I'm Alice Loxton.
And I'm Ben Henderson, and we're delighted to be able to tell you about our new history podcast, which we hope you'll like.
It's called Here for the History, and each episode we find out how stories from the past have shaped our lives in the present. I want to start our chat today with a famous quote, which has been slightly altered. You might recognise parts of it. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a good dress is in want of a pocket.
Ha well that does sound vaguely reminiscent of Jane Austen, does it?
That's right. This is loosely based on the opening lines of Pride and Prejudice, her most famous novel. And this week we're looking at pockets, um, which is a big big topic at the moment. You see a lot of people discussing it on social media. There's all sorts of memes, viral songs, articles, and the big question is Why do women's clothes these days not tend to have pockets, whereas men's clothes are full of pockets? I mean, if you think about a suit, there's pockets in the trousers, there's loads of pockets on the inner lining of the jacket.
I think a lot of men might come to this from the experience of having to you know carry your your girlfriend's stuff, their keys. If they don't have a handbag on them, they're pretty stuffed, aren't they?
Well, there we go. And I think it's kind of inconceivable for me to leave the house without a bag, even just to carry a phone or keys. Most of my coats, I wouldn't say, have a proper pocket. And if they do, it's tiny. I mean this jacket I'm wearing now has these tiny pockets in the side, but there's absolutely nowhere you'd want to keep valuables in there, and there's no pocket on the inside at all.
At all. Girls come up with ingenious ways of looking after their belongings. I've heard some people do use their bra, but um that's uh that's just a rumour.
Um now even when there are pockets put into women's clothes, they're always much smaller. So they did a survey in 2018 which showed that women's pockets were forty eight percent smaller than men's. And ninety percent of women's pockets you can't even fit a hand in. The case of w the jacket I'm currently wearing.
Oh, you can't fit your hand in there. No. What's the I mean, that seems totally pointless. So you can just wiggle your finger in there. That's how that's bananas.
Well maybe it's just for show, I suppose. Um now though this might all seem quite trivial, a trivial aspect of today's world, it's actually steeped in history. And we will be diving into that history today. We will be unpicking the seam of the pocket, if you like. Um, and really asking why do men and women have such a different pocket experience over the centuries? How is it that men have loads of pockets today and women just really don't have any? We'll be looking at some quite surprising links to ancient Greece, to the ideals of the French Revolution, to fabulous regency dresses, and the superpocketed suffragettes. So it's a complicated, wide-ranging topic.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–8:52
2
Why do women’s clothes today often lack pockets while men’s clothes are full of them?
8:52–18:02
3
What was the story of Jane Griffith’s duck‑sized pockets in the 1770s and what does it reveal about early women’s pockets?
18:02–32:52
4
How did tie‑on pockets work in the medieval and Tudor periods and why did they disappear?
32:52–34:22
5
Did Henry VIII really invent the sewn‑in pocket and how did it change men’s fashion?
34:22–40:54