The Lost Art Of The Chest Pockets

A few weeks ago, buoyed by the rare excitement of my 93-year-old grandfather agreeing to let me buy him a shirt, I ordered what I thought would be considered unimpeachable. A 100 per cent cotton, milk-white dress shirt from a popular homegrown label.

Little did I know it would be rejected soon after it'd be delivered.

It turned out the shirt lacked something seemingly minor, yet far more consequential than most men today would expect from their tailored fits: a chest pocket. When did it disappear? A prevailing view amongst men today insists that shirts without the extra square of fabric look more proportional and seamless and balanced in their fitting. The silhouette, they argue, is cleaner without a chest pocket. Few like my grandfather want the breast pocket stitched perfectly on the left side of their shirts. But to their dismay, the chest pocket that was once a mid-century invention has quietly fallen out of favour just as swiftly as the shirt fell out of favour with my grandfather.

Now almost obsolete, the chest pockets until the rise of the Industrial revolution were virtually nonexistent because the shirt itself was not meant to be seen. Any storage needs were handled by waistcoat pockets or trouser pockets. It was only by early-to-mid 20th century that shirts transitioned from undergarments for a vest suit to visible, standalone garments, thereby stepping into autonomy and with that utility.

The pocket held what men carried: fountain pens, train tickets, eyewear, folded notes, sometimes even a wallet in less security-conscious times.

So when did we decide that a small square of fabric disrupted the male silhouette so irreparably?

Perhaps, we should reason the smartphone and it is tempting to indict technology. However, not so fast. Afterall, the smartphone has absorbed the wallet to a large extent, the pocket diary and the pocket watch and even a ticket. What, then, would a chest pocket hold? A classic case of identity crisis.

To be fair, one would be almost convinced but one peek into women's wardrobe today and you know, the beast pockets are feeding into the idea of girlboss successfully.

Most men's shirts maybe with the exception of a Chambray, workwear and overshirt are pocketless. And the irony is delicious needless to say. The chest pocket that once symbolised functionality has now been edited out in pursuit of a sleeker man—one who, apparently, carries nothing and loves minimalism.

But for my grandfather, who has survived wars, recessions and the slow death of handwritten correspondence, does carry something. A pen. A folded receipt. A note. The pocket is not an aesthetic choice to him; it is infrastructure. So, the rejection of the shirt was not critiquing the choice of shirt I'd gotten him in particular but was questioning of its completeness.