The next time you grab a pair of jeans from your wardrobe, look at the front and you’ll probably notice a small pocket found within the actual pocket. Granted, not every brand or style of jeans features this extra-small pocket, but many do. If you inspect this pocket, you’ll notice that it’s too small to fit your wallet or other everyday items in. This begs the question, then: what is the purpose of these extra-small pockets on jeans?
On the community Q&A website Quora, a user recently sought an answer to this question. Another user responded by revealing the true nature of this these extra-tiny pockets: Levi Strauss came up with the idea of including small pockets in jeans for the purpose of holding a watch. According to the user, cowboys and miners would carry watches attached to chains on their waistcoats. Levi Strauss wanted to prevent people from losing their pocket watches, so he added two small pockets to his jeans. The trend has since stuck, with many other denim makers and companies following in his footsteps.
“It’s a watch pocket. Back in the 1800s, cowboys used to wear their watches on chains and kept them in their waistcosts. To keep them from getting broken, Levi’s introduced this small pocket where they could keep their watch,” explained the user.
Of course, there are other things for which the small pockets can be used. For instance, you can store your car key or house key inside the pocket, assuming it’s not connected to a large key ring. The pockets can also be used to store coins. Other things that you can store inside the small pockets of jeans include lip balm, a knife, receipts, USB flash drives, or wetnaps. Feel free to come up with your own use for the small pockets. While it may have been invented for the purpose of storing a watch, it can be used to store a countless number of other items.
To recap, those two small pockets found inside the pockets of your jeans were initially designed for storing a watch. Few people (if any) use it for this purpose today. Nonetheless, designers continue to use them in their jeans.
