It's early autumn again, and it's the best time to take out jeans.
But you find that no, jeans always have a "pocket in a pocket" design. Generally, this small pocket is located above the pant pocket on the right side of the front of the jeans.
Beyoncé, who loves jeans, has this small pocket on the jeans she wears|Source: Weibo@Levi's China
On all kinds of jeans, this small pocket is also sewn into it, and the appearance of the small pocket is different.
There is a length that is almost as wide as a regular pocket.
Source: Taobao @simplepieces flagship store
There are also very narrow ones that seem to be laborious to stuff a few fingers.
Source: Taobao @ Peacebird official flagship store
There is also a different way, not to use denim to black.
Source: ONLY official outlets
There's a brand that's ingenious, stitching its own branding on the small pocket.
Source: Taobao @Calvin Klein's official flagship store
Although there are many different types of small pockets, they all have one thing in common: they are all so small that it is difficult to fit even a pack of tissues. As a pocket, how can you ignore its "natural mission" - to carry things?
What is this mini pocket used for? Why do jeans have to keep this little pocket?
A small pocket for pocket watches
The jeans we wear in our daily lives today evolved from the classic jeans that appeared in the 19th century.
At the time, jeans were still known as waist overalls, and their customers were manual laborers such as miners, carpenters, railroad workers, and farmers, selling the fabric for durability.
waist overalls｜图源：ullstein bild Dtl.//Getty Images
At the same time, pocket watches, which were originally expensive and full of style, had just undergone some "evolution": Thomas Mudge improved the gear mechanism and escapement of pocket watches to design cheap pocket watches, and since then, pocket watches, which were originally only popular among the aristocracy, have entered the homes of ordinary people. Among them, it also includes the target audience of jeans.
However, although the price of pocket watches was not expensive at that time, they were still valuable to these ordinary workers and needed to be carefully kept. Due to the fact that they bend over and other actions during their daily work, small pocket watches are placed in ordinary pockets that are relatively large compared to pocket watches, and there is a great risk of falling or even being lost. In response to this, people designed a pocket pocket for the pocket watch in the right pocket of the jeans, which is the same size as the pocket watch and smaller than the normal pocket, and is specially designed to hold the pocket watch.
In other words, this "pocket in the pocket" is actually specially designed for pocket watches.
Modeled after the oldest blue jeans in Levi's archives, the 9Rivet jeans have small pockets on them Source: levistrauss.com
Some people may wonder, was pocket watches so important at that time? Can't you put it aside while you're working?
This was closely related to the need for time management at the time. Before the Industrial Revolution, people's life and work rhythm was mostly arranged according to sunrise and sunset, but with the advancement of the Industrial Revolution, the acceleration of urbanization and the popularization of new means of transportation, people's need for accurate control of time is becoming more and more intense.
At first, people used bulky clocks placed indoors to tell the time, but it was difficult to carry, and then people tried to reduce the size of clocks, and the first portable clocks, pocket watches, appeared.
Pocket watches allow people to know the time anytime and anywhere, so as to better plan daily affairs and work tasks, and greatly improve the efficiency and accuracy of time management. In addition, the price of pocket watches has become cheaper, and people are as inseparable from pocket watches as if they could not do without the control of time.
Not only jeans, but also suits are designed to store a pocket watch. Prince Albert of United Kingdom popularized the "Albert chain" used to connect pocket watches and suits: a T-shaped metal rod at one end of the bracelet was placed vertically into one of the buttonholes of the garment, and the pocket watch at the other end of the chain was placed in a pocket not far from the entrance, and the bracelet hung down from the buttonhole.
Source: Picture Worm Creative
In short, as long as the safety of the pocket watch can be guaranteed, there is nothing wrong with the design, and it can even lead a generation of fashion trends. It was only later that more lightweight and easy-to-store watches emerged, and the use of pocket watches became correspondingly less. The small pocket lost its original functionality and remained on the jeans as a retro fashion element.
Nails near the small pocket
Although the small pocket was originally used to hold pocket watches, now that people use pocket watches less, it should be okay to decorate other small objects. It's just that things are easy to put in, but it may be a little difficult to take them out - in addition to small pockets, some pockets have nails on the sides of the pockets as "roadblocks".
Source: Weibo @Levis China
In addition to the small pockets, near the seams of the trousers, near the zipper, etc., there may be "nails on the ground", and all kinds of nails are dazzling.
Source: Taobao @ Shifanli official flagship store, @UR official flagship store, @lee official flagship store
Why these nails?
Don't look at these nails as small, they really shouldn't be underestimated.
In the early days of using denim to make trousers, the main customers of jeans, people who work a lot, often encountered the problem of premature tearing and wear of the pocket corners and other stress points of the pants. The fabric itself is quite durable, but what should I do if the pants are not so durable due to the constant wear and tear of the stress points?
In response, United States tailor Jacob Davis came up with a way to increase the strength and durability of the pants by using ram studs to reinforce the area around the pockets and crotch and secure these most commonly pulled spots.
As the name suggests, the nail is "hit" out, the stud is passed through the cloth, and then the washer or disc is hammered up, so that the nail "hits" the cloth, and later there is even a special nail process.
The advent of the batter studs has taken the practicality of jeans to a new level. In 1873, Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss collaborated to obtain a patent for a design with striker nails. This is the first time in human history that jeans have been patented, and it also marks the official birth of jeans.
improvement in fastening pocket openings（加强口袋开口牢固度的方法）专利原始图纸和文件 | 图源：参考资料
The denim's preference for jeans in western movies in the last century led to the further promotion of jeans, which is called "jeans" in Chinese, rather than directly transliterated as "Jones", and is also somewhat influenced by these movies.
Source: Screenshot of the 1939 movie "Guanshan Feidu".
Since cowboys do not have to work as hard as miners, there are fewer nails on their trousers, and the nails in the crotch and back pocket of the jeans are selectively removed to accommodate their needs such as horseback riding and outdoor fires.
After being admired by denim, jeans became more and more popular. In the fifties of the 20th century, it was also associated with counterculture: rock stars showed off the coolness of jeans, hippies took to the streets in jeans, and feminists chose blue jeans as a symbol of gender equality...... With the continuous addition of various factors, there are more and more people wearing jeans.
Audrey · Hepburn in jeans | Source: Screenshot of the 1967 movie "Beauty Walk".
Even Yves Saint Laurent, a world-class designer, once admitted: "I often wish I was the one who invented jeans, which come in all sorts of ways, humble, sexy, simple – that's what I wanted to do with clothes." "People imitate cowboys and express their individuality.
Nowadays, with the development of the times, there is less and less need for anti-excessive wear and tear of pants, and the batter nail finally changes from a practical small design to a nostalgic fashion design, just like a small pocket. However, even with the barrier of the studs, the small pockets are still full of tricks, and there are endless uses for putting headphones, bus cards, coins, etc., and even the batters can be stacked with other decorations.
Of course, due to the loss of the opportunity to play a practical role, in the design of some jeans are also "used in and out", canceling small pockets and nails, after all, the role of pockets still has to fall on the loading of things first, and if there are too many nails on the pants, it may even affect the comfort of wearing.
But as long as they can still play, the little pockets and nails will still carry their history with them, "telling" their own stories on jeans.
1. Denim Hunters. Rivets: What Are They and Why Do Jeans Have Them? Denimhunters2. Svencionis, Faustas. The History of Albert Chains. Mozeris Fine Antiques, October 16.3. 中国钟表网. 《怀表的发展历史和由来》. 中国钟表网4. Krueger, Maude Bass. Vogue《時尚百科: 永遠穿不膩！100年來的牛仔褲演變史》
Author: Min Min Almond White Editor: Chen Yanni Duty Editor: Min Min
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