What is the small jean pocket for? It’s not as useless as you thought.

Surely more than once you have wondered about the usefulness (or if it has any) of this small detail of your ‘jean” here we give you the answer

It has happened to all of us. You are getting dressed and decide to opt for some jeans for your outfit of the day, those that are your favorites or those that you feel most comfortable in. But, when you put them on, something catches your attention; something you may have never stopped to think about. It’s that little pocket that has always been there, but you, for the first time, ask yourself the big question what is it for?

As much as it is useful for us on very specific occasions, it is not there to store coins (or cents perhaps), the gum wrapper that we don’t know where to put or a hairpin that gets in the way.

No coins, no condoms: this is what the small pocket of your jeans is for

Its usefulness—because yes, it has it—is another. And to know the origin of this small cowboy pocket we have to go back to the 19th century . This was explained by the legendary jean brand Levis Strauss , which has been at the helm of the leading brand in jeans sales for more than 140 years, where they dedicated a special space to that forgotten detail of this garment and finally responded to a of the most popular and most mysterious doubts.

From the firm, they assure that the first jeans that were marketed had four pockets in total; one in the back and two in the front that were accompanied by a smaller one.

These pockets were designed with the original purpose of storing chain or pocket watches (hence the name). Before the arrival of this invention in jeans , cowboys were forced to tuck them into their vest or waistband.

As Levi’s historian Tracey Panek told Insider , “the watch pocket was a feature of our first waisted jumpsuit (the original name for the jeans made by Levi Strauss & Co)” and the brand added it to its designs. by tailor Jacob Davis.

The reason why Levi’s does not give them up

However, no one uses them anymore to check the time and, therefore, their initial usefulness has been losing its original meaning, but that does not mean that it has ceased to be useful. In fact, it has become a hallmark for the jeans magnate and his Lot 501 made the almost prevailing use of this extra pocket fashionable.

For this reason, to this day, the jeans brand continues to preserve them in all its creations “to preserve the integrity of the initial design“, as Panek herself explained at the time.

This small detail of the jean that, far from what you might think, was not created by design or aesthetics, is now used to store all types of smaller objects, such as bills, trinkets, a lighter or even condoms .