Check out these five outdated features of “women’s clothing”

We’ve been thinking… Why do clothes designers persist with these five annoying features on women’s clothing?

Enter Gender Free Clothing‘s “women’s fashion” bugbears 101. You are welcome.

POCKETS, ANYONE?

In our opinion, this is one of the biggest pitfalls of womenswear design. Apparently, way back when women didn’t need pockets because their husbands carried the money for them [eye roll]. Some might say, “Why don’t you just use a handbag?” But that defeats the point – more women than you think would prefer to be hands-free. Maybe you don’t want to carry a handbag just to have somewhere to put your mobile phone and dollar bills?

Luckily, there are a few retailers out there that sell women’s clothes with proper pockets. Nicola Hustler, womenswear design manager at Fat Face, explains her philosophy as:

“Pockets are often a key feature for our customer in her everyday, busy life. We would not consider doing ‘fake’ pockets on our products as we provide authentic clothing and pay special attention to every detail when we design.”

Oh and “flaps” – let’s not forget about them, they’re everywhere. On blazers, skirts, jeans, trousers – you name it, there’s a version featuring pointless flaps. They’re essentially fake pockets with the flap acting as the pocket “lid”. If you lift up the flap you’ll see, well, nothing underneath.

Some of our shirts have pockets and some don’t, but if we put a pocket on them rest assured it will always be a real one.

FLIMSY FABRICS

Number two. Why is women’s wear often made of a flimsy, see-through material? I’m pretty sure not all of us want to show off every part of our body (though it’s fine if some do) and would rather have the choice whether to show off our bodies with transparent fabric or always remember to wear our best bra.

This also often means women have to layer up – because see-through clothes are not warm. Come to think of it… is this subtle way companies make women buy more clothes? Hmm?

Above: Mesh Top from Topshop

REGULAR TEES

Some women love wearing tees depicting their favourite band, movie or even just a funny quote. Still, you only have to go to a gig and look at the merch stall to see just how different the women’s t-shirts are from the men’s. Shorter sleeves, lower neckline and poorer quality material seem to be the norm for women’s band t-shirts. And if you opt for the men’s version, for many female bodies, they just don’t fit right.

SPORTSWEAR, DON’T CARE

Wow, what is with women’s activewear?! If you shop for running gear in the women’s department you’ll more than likely find that the only colours available are pinks and purples. Sure, you could opt for a more generic grey or black – but look at the men’s section and you’ll see an array of colours to choose from. Red, blue, orange, green – it’s all there.

That isn’t much of a problem when compared to the practicality of these sports clothes – we’re talking low necklines and low waistbands for gym wear. The sheer impractical nature of the cut of women’s sportswear means we’re more at risk of mooning everyone when we need to do squats or flashing someone when we’re lifting weights.

In fact, we felt so strongly about pink in women’s sportswear that we made a little video about it…

WHAT SIZE..?

Finally. Have you ever tried on an item of clothing that’s your size, only to find it’s way too small? This is way more common than you think and it makes women feel like there’s something wrong with their bodies.

You’re a size 14 in Primark, but a size 18 in Topshop – what’s going on? Another problem with the way the world sizes women’s clothes is they only take into account a certain body type. The industry forgets that some of us have bigger busts, wide hips, narrow hips, larger bums, flatter bums and the list goes on. That’s why at GFW Clothing we offer a choice of “body shapes” and also sizes – 28 variants per shirt design, to be precise.