Pocketing the difference: pockets and gender in nineteenth-century Britain

Burman, Barbara (2002) Pocketing the difference: pockets and gender in nineteenth-century Britain. Gender & History, 14 (3), 447-469. (doi:10.1111/1468-0424.00277).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This study situates pockets as significant gendered objects in the dress and lives of men and women in the period from the 1790s to 1914. Using surviving examples and a diverse range of visual and documentary sources, it examines the role of pockets in the consumption of personal possessions and money, and explores how pockets occupied a special place in relation to the body and its gestures. By revealing differences in the way men and women used their pockets, the study concludes that pockets embodied change and complexity within the consumption of fashion and the construction of gender.

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

Published date: November 2002

Additional Information: This special issue was published as a book of the same title by Blackwell, Oxford in 2003, ISBN 1-4051-0906-8. This essay is the first sustained exploration of the way pockets in male and female clothing have been used. It raises new questions about how they have shaped and encoded a gendered experience of the world. Working out from the established concerns of dress history with form and materials, the essay links these with everyday practices of gendered roles, including the possession of a repertoire of small personal items and the control and use of money. The essay combines a diverse range of types of primary sources with an examination of museum examples to make a multi-layered reading of its subject, including unexpected areas of female resistance to fashion.

Keywords: pocket, dress history, gender

Organisations: Winchester School of Art

Learn more about Winchester School of Art research