Forget the age-old question of “what’s in my bag?” The hottest question in the fashion landscape now is “what’s in my pockets?” With offbeat cult-favourite fashion brands like Collina Strada and Sacai popularising cargo skirts and pants, pockets are becoming a staple in women’s clothing, particularly at NYFW.
Admittedly, it’s a bit funny to consider pockets a new trend, a thing that has not already been a staple in women’s clothing despite being such a basic feature. Garment design, like society, has historically failed to provide femme bodies with the bare minimum: a space to hold the most basic essentials. In the early years of the millennium, pockets were unnecessarily scarce. Girls’ clothing was subject to having tiny pockets, no pockets, or even worse — fake pockets! Think: Victoria Beckham’s Spring/Summer 2009 debut.
Whether intentional or not, that discrepancy in clothing exacerbates pre-existing gender divides. This isn’t just about the convenience of a pocket, but the way that fashion influences how we move through the world. Young boys had clothing with practical pockets, able to hold tools and toys while playing, dressed for exploration and invention. On the flipside, girls with cosmetic pockets that were stitched shut struggled to bring even a chapstick around.
Though far from the fashion of the 1950s, when Christian Dior himself explicitly remarked, “Men have pockets to keep things in, women for decoration,” high-street brands still relied heavily on faux pockets, like Old Navy in 2021.
In this way, the recent trend of utilitarianism is more than an aesthetic movement, but a feminist subversion. The modern woman is a maximalist. Jam-packed with things to do, she needs adequate space, and she’s not settling for below the bare minimum anymore! Women are reaching for clothing that creates an image of having enough room to carry absolutely anything and everything they’d like. Perhaps it is a knee-jerk reaction to the pocket recession that plagued the last decades. But what’s wrong with being a bit indulgent?
Sandy Liang, for instance, has been consistently making progress in this department. With their latest Spring/Summer 2027 collection that just debuted on the NYFW runway, the brand is cutely defiant against the pocket-less early 2000s era by showcasing skirts that have been described as “reminiscent of Y2K-era athleisure,” with one key difference: the waists have built-in fanny packs. But this isn’t the only way pockets made a return to the Sandy Liang universe this season, as we saw pink and white satin skirts abundant in tiny pockets lined up perfectly in rows and columns of five. Handheld bags also had copious amounts of pockets visibly displayed on the outside panels of the purses.
This stylised excess is nothing new from Sandy Liang, whose push for pockets quite literally became most obvious during Spring/Summer 2026 with the clear pocket theme. Hinging on ornamentalism, the fashion label designed pieces that said, not only do we want pockets on display, but we want the items inside on display too! The Trinket Skirt, even via its name, encouraged wearers to engage with the world by collecting small knick-knacks and trinkets for the sake of decoration. The Windows Tote was nearly a caricature of this theme, as the product itself was a bag, but it still played into the idea of carrying items in unconventional ways. For Sandy Liang, pockets are about more than having the ability to keep items on you, but making it crystal clear to the world that you have things worth holding on your body.
The rebellion against the pocket deficit also plays out online through more accessible fashion trends. As of late, fashion content creators are sticking items under sheer tights, creating a look that’s been referred to as “the ‘what’s in her bag?’ tights.” Everything from wired earbuds to lip glosses are visibly spread across legs under colourful hosiery. The look was popularised by London-based stylist and content creator, Magda Kaczmarska, whose “objects under tights” series became so popular it’s landed her a collab with Betsey Johnson in recent years.
Even cargo, which is typically the most traditional take on an abundance of pockets, is finding inventive ways to push the pocket propaganda. Sacai’s Resort 2027 presentation featured a number of extra-large pockets on pants and extended shorts. The pockets are almost ridiculously oversized, and they purposefully dangle outside the bottoms rather than inside, so as to further assert themselves as a defining feature. Sacai’s denim skirt similarly directs attention to its pockets with a tiered cutout on the upper half, creating a flared silhouette.
More brands that are championing pockets at NYFW for Spring/Summer 2027 include pioneers like Collina Strada and Jane Wade. Both featured balloon-like bottoms with massive cargo-styled pockets. It’s a look that, similar to Sandy Liang, these brands have been leaning into slowly over the last few seasons. In fact, on Jane Wade’s runway last season, models were seen carrying Red Bull cans in “drink-sleeve” pockets that were built into the vests, belts, and even crossbody slings. Bottoms on her runway had bulbous pockets that appeared so blown up at the waist that they resembled fanny packs.
This season’s concepts add to the commentary that we have the choice to reject conventional bags, and instead invite playful takes on a hybrid bag-clothing design. For years, feminine clothing has asked girls and women to make themselves smaller, to minimise how much you can interact with the world, and place restraints on how that interaction occurs. Pockets galore is the opposite of this. It’s a manifesto for taking up space, making your interests visible.
Sandy Liang
Jane Wade
MM6 Maison Margiela
Willy Chavarria
Collina Strada
Sacai
