The Pocket Came Later
The Pocket Came Later
The chest pocket was not part of the original t-shirt, and the reason it arrived is better than you would guess.
A pocket tee looks like the most obvious garment ever made. It was not obvious at all. Somebody had to put that pocket there, and it took about forty years after the shirt itself.
The Vest Left and the Pocket Stayed
For most of the nineteenth century a man wore a waistcoat, and the waistcoat carried the small things. A watch, matches, a pencil, a folded note.
As the century turned and dressing loosened, the waistcoat came off. What men carried in it still had to go somewhere. Chest pockets on shirts and then on tees became the answer.
The Patent
There is a documented starting point. On the sixteenth of August 1929, a patent was filed in Evanston, Illinois, on behalf of a Chicago manufacturer, for a shirt with asymmetrical chest pockets. The smaller one on the left was sized for a pack of cigarettes.
The design was serious about it. The pocket was two ply so the contents stayed off wet skin, and it had a closure to keep the rain out.
That is the era in a nutshell. Somebody looked at a real problem, drew a small solution, and filed it.
Why the Left
Most people are right handed, and a right hand crosses naturally to the left side of the chest. That is the whole reason, and it is the reason it has stayed there ever since.
The 1950s Sealed It
Once tees were being worn as outer garments rather than under something, the pocket became standard. By the 1950s and 1960s it was everywhere, and it was doing two jobs at once. It carried things, and it gave a plain front some structure.
That second job is the one that matters now. A pocket breaks up an empty chest and gives the eye somewhere to land. It is the difference between a shirt and a blank.
What a Pocket Has to Get Right
Placement decides everything. Too high and it looks nervous. Too low and it drags. Too far in and the shirt looks narrow. The pocket has to sit where the chest actually is on the size it is cut for, which means it moves as the sizes move.
It also has to be sewn to hold weight. A pocket that puckers or pulls away at the top corners after a season was tacked on rather than designed in.
Ours
The Ultimate Pocket Tee carries our own rain drop pocket. The shape is ours. It is not a square patch and it is not a copy of anything, and it is the detail people notice first.
The cloth is 10.5oz slub cotton produced in the USA. Heirloom flat stitch seams run throughout. Designed and made in Seattle.
It comes in the natural fabric color and in our own garment dyed colors, including Charcoal, Army and Vintage Rose. Garment dyeing means the finished shirt goes into the dye whole, so the pocket, the seams and the thread all take the color a little differently.
A Way Of Life.
Shop the Story
the SLUB Ultimate Pocket Tee in natural
the SLUB Ultimate Pocket Tee in CHARCOAL
the SLUB Ultimate Pocket Tee in VINTAGE ROSE
Related Reading