A pocket of one's own
My quest for activewear with pockets and what it reveals about prioritizing women's form over function
The hunt for women’s clothes with pockets feels like asking a dog not to bark at the delivery person—doomed from the start. Many a joke has been made about how women respond to compliments about clothing with “And it has pockets!”; so many that to make such a joke again feels so trite, but it is hard to find women’s clothes with proper pockets. Clothing manufacturers work overtime to avoid giving women real pockets that can fit phones. There’s the fake out which is the sewn-in pocket that only looks like one but isn’t actually one and the tiny pocket for another, so tiny that it can only fit a maximum of one finger, maybe two if one is lucky. Contrast this to clothes made for men which can fit everything from wallet, keys, and earphones to a Kindle.
And then there is activewear. While it’s meant for people to wear to…sports and other forms of activity, over time, activewear has somehow ended up as the preferred signaling wardrobe which means brands work overtime for form over function even in activewear.
I can’t tell if this is a symptom of the disease of “Men in high positions making decisions about what they think women want” or a function of the “Everything for the male gaze” problem or “BigAccessory disenfranchising women of the right to not buy a bag for every activity” but it has meant that finding activewear bottoms with pockets is quite hard.
To reward my efforts at being a regular runner, I decided to treat myself and kit up like a “real runner” (you know, the kind that wears cool, flowy shorts and looks effortless and not the kind that is red in the face and has a look of constipation).
I wanted to buy myself some cool, flowy shorts with inner skin so I could be a real runner and not someone running in her “regular training” clothes (Love that marketers work overtime to make me think that I need a specialized type of clothing for every activity instead of just an extra piece of fabric creating a small pouch to hold essentials). I couldn’t run in most of my regular gym bottoms anyway because except for one pair of running tights I acquired from Decathlon in 2019, none of them have pockets. I was making do by using an old armband I had lying around but I hated it because there was no place for my keys and I was always worried they’d fall and I wouldn’t realize it immediately.
After making the mistake of buying a pair online and learning about how these tights can ride up and make your life super uncomfortable, I decided that I’d only buy myself a pair after I tried it on. I visited all of the local branches of popular sports brands - Nike, Reebok, Puma, Adidas, and even Jockey in my quest. Nike didn’t have any running bottoms for women (like none), Reebok didn’t have any in my size so I couldn’t try it on, Puma didn’t have any with pockets in them, Jockey had pockets but the drawstring was kind of weird and it felt like they might fall down (?), Decathlon’s women’s shorts didn’t have the inner skin which means ChafeCity and they wanted me to buy the men’s (which is not a new look for them). I live in a upscale-ish neighbourhood in Bangalore that has a lot of youths, women, and female youths with money. One would assume that I’d be well served in my neighborhood but going by the stores in my neighborhood, I must assume that these stores either don’t see much business from active women, these young women don't exercise like me, or have assumed that active women don’t need clothes that fulfill their needs but only need for them to look good. Athleisure and not activewear that does the job and holds the keys, phones, and earphones.
Some startups, like Blissclub, have even decided that this is a problem worth solving. Blissclub rose to popularity by promising women activewear leggings with actual pockets (4!) in a range of sizes. Their first line was just of different lengths and sizes in the color black and it sold like gangbusters. Women are so starved for leggings that fit their phones that it was worn for all kinds of occasions besides workouts — they wore it to work, they wore it to the movies, they wore it to meet their friends. Eventually, the leggings came out in different colors and with minor tweaks — flared bottoms, capris, shorts. Their OG leggings are what I wore when I ran a 10k for the first time in five years (even though it has a janky zipper) because their pockets fit my phone and earphones case (god forbid I don’t repurpose my one pair of earbuds for running as well). When I looked through their website for running shorts, I realized they’d expanded into workwear and sweatshirts and many other categories but thankfully, had not forsaken the OG leggings with 4 pockets. Their website even had running shorts with pockets (yay!) but they were sold out (at the store, I was informed that they were part of an old line) so I decided to settle for biking shorts.
As I write this article, I recognize the absurdity of that sentiment. I am always settling for something or the other in my everyday life - I settle for men’s badminton shoes, I settle for men’s tee shirts because women’s tee shirts are often too tight or cropped, I settle for men’s backpacks because women’s backpacks can fit a laptop and a wish. For someone in the 0.1% of India’s income distribution, I do an absurd amount of “adjusting” because the market does not care for serving someone who cares deeply about form, not function. The market is always trying to capture the interest of the many, not the few who want their products to be functional as well as stylish, serving practical needs without sacrificing purpose. This is not breaking news — female athletes have long been under pressure to be fashionable and athletic so much so that they’re fined when they go for function over form.
When I hopefully went to their HSR store (the first store in Bangalore), I discovered that they did have biking shorts but it’s from the newest line which does not…include pockets anymore. So…Blissclub went in and removed the pockets based on whim or market demand.
As I left the Blissclub store, with no pants or pockets, I couldn’t help my anger. For all the strides we’ve made in technology, culture, and even fashion, something as basic as functional clothing for women remains a struggle. It’s not just about pockets. It’s about being seen as people with practical needs, not just aesthetic objects or market demographics.
Settling has become second nature — for clothes that don’t fit quite right, for “solutions” that don’t solve anything, and for a market that prioritizes how I look over what I need. And every time we settle, we reinforce the idea that this is enough. But it’s not.
Pockets aren’t just about convenience. They’re about freedom, utility, and...acknowledgment. They’re about living without having to carry the extra baggage — literally and figuratively. Maybe one day, I’ll find shorts that fit my phone, my keys, and my life. But the goal is to keep running even if no one can see me.
Interesting article. Just the other day, my daughter was complaining of small useless pockets of her jeans. We spoke about how pockets are a recent phenomenon in women's wear. My wife's tailor is now stitching pockets into her salwars and suits almost be default, but back in the day, that wasn't the case. I used to carry my grand mother's purse as she navigated the vegetable market in her saree. The saree still is a frontier the pockets haven't reached!
This spoke directly to my heart. My quest for running tights with pockets leave me with barely any options. I have been wearing the same frayed running tights for eternity now. Finding new practical ones is next to impossible. I will look at Blissclub, thanks for the suggestion.