Pocket Revolution

Approach: To study the nature of pockets in women's fashion, we went to a local mall to conduct research, looking at two categories of clothing: Casual -- Gap, Aeropostale, H&M, and Business -- Anne Taylor, J Crew, Banana Republic. We found that in casual pants like jeans, pockets were either very shallow or nonexistent, sometimes even sown shut. In fact, the only pair of jeans we found that could comfortably hold an iPhone were Gap's Boyfriend Jeans, a very loose fitting pant. In business clothes, women's suit-pants often had pockets but these pockets were initially sown shut, allowing the customer to decide whether they want functional pockets. After reviewing the market, we returned to the design of the pocket itself, compiling a typology of pocket types we found in the field. Initially, we had a few ideas for an intervention: (a) To replace the pockets with multi-seamed depth where a person can choose how many seams to open and customize depth (b) To resolve the issue by redesigning boots to have pocket space for phones, or (c) To extend the existing front pockets and create more depth. We chose the last option as the most feasible to complete within our time constraints of one week, extending the pocket to fit an iPhone.

Conclusion: While this intervention can be seen as a solitary event, we were envisioning a pocket-altering service that extends into a platform with pocket-extension kits for a DIY experience or connections to exterior factors such as the iPhone releases (as these entrepreneurs did). Another extension of our intervention, as well as of our preliminary research, is designing pants with interchangeable, modular pockets for a more personalized pocket experience.