How useful are your pockets? This may sound like a joke question but we’re asking in all seriousness. Pockets are standard in the vast majority of pant styles precisely because they’re supposed to be useful It’s handy to be able to store your wallet, phone, keys, and other small personal items in a place that hugs your body and is easy to reach for should the need arise. But do your pockets actually do that? As clothing has moved further and further into the realms of fashion over function, pockets have become an afterthought, sometimes even stitched shut to prevent wearers from mistaking those little seams as anything other than decorative. Pockets are getting smaller, less useful, and clothing designers for some inexplicable reason seem to think that we don’t need them at all.
But without pockets, how will we carry our wallets, phones, and keys? Even women who have the option of carrying purses would mostly rather be more mobile and hands-free, but women’s clothes often don’t get any pockets at all. Fortunately, we have a solution, and it’s a lot trendier than the fanny pack.
Drop-Leg Bags
Drop leg bags are like the stylish older sibling to the fanny pack. Rather than fastening around your waist like a belt, a drop leg back hangs usefully along the outside of your thigh secured by a thigh strap and a subtle waist or shoulder strap. They can be big or small, short or nearly knee-length, and they can do every job your pockets just aren’t up to.
The Line of Your Pants
The first kind of pocket problem that drop-leg bags can solve are when you have pockets but they’re not actually designed to be used. Whether your pockets came open or you’re handy with a seam-ripper to open up pockets sewn closed by the manufacturer, many pairs of pants include pockets but putting things in them is impractical. Even a slender wallet in the back pocket or pack of gum in a front pocket pulls the fabric out of shape, ruining the line of your pants. You can either carry everything important in your hands, carry a separate bag for a few small items, or walk around with funny-looking pants.
Drop-leg bags can strap tight to slim-fit pants or loosely to straight-line pants allowing you to store everything you need right at pocket-level without pulling the line of your pants out of shape.
Impractical Pocket Design
Sometimes you buy a pair of pants, they look and feel good on you, but there’s something subtly wrong. You go to slip your hands into the front pockets only to find that you can’t catch the opening the way you expected to. As you search around for the actual top of your pockets, you begin to wonder if the designer even understood the concept and function of pockets or if they simply threw them in as a symbolic gesture. In these cases, even if the pockets could hold things without misshaping the pants, you can’t use them because the pockets are at an uncomfortable angle that is not natural to how your arms work.
Once again, drop-leg bags are your best friend. Rather than tossing the halfway-useless pants or trying to work with inconvenient pockets, you can simply strap on an additional spacious pocket where your pants pockets should have been.
No Pockets At All
Finally, there are pants that don’t actually have any pockets at all. This problem is exceedingly common in women’s clothing, even with pants meant to be jeans and working clothes, and the problem has already begun to creep into men’s clothing as well. Some pants are so ridiculous that they have fake seams pretending to be pockets but no actual pockets sewn in.
Whether you’re wearing a style of pants that is almost never pocketed or you’ve found yourself with fake-pocket pants, a drop-leg bag is a surprisingly stylish solution to where you’ll put your wallet and phone.
If you’ve been lamenting the uselessness of your current pockets, why not try a drop-leg bag for yourself? Who knows, maybe you’ll start a workplace trend as your friends and co-workers realize just how useful your new pocket-solution really is.