Carrying Stories: Illuminated Arts and the Secret Life of Women’s Pockets
A pocket may seem like a humble piece of cloth, but in women’s history it has been nothing short of revolutionary. For the London based community centred studio Illuminated Arts, the tie-on pocket is a key to understanding how textiles have shaped daily life, offering both practical use and a quiet symbol of autonomy. Through workshops and community projects, Illuminated Arts bring such overlooked stories to light, showing how fabric carries not only objects but memory, identity and resistance. This September, as part of the inaugural Selvedge London Textile Month, they turn their focus to the remarkable history of women’s pockets.
A secret pocket containing a note is visible under the skirts of a female figure. Print: 'Spring' by John Collet, 1779. Courtesy of the British Museum.
On Wednesday 3 September at Museum of the Home, and Tuesday 9 September at Cherry Garden Hall, Illuminated Arts will host a full-day workshop to Make a Historically Inspired Pocket. Led by textile-artist-historian Melissa Jo Smith and celebrated designer Rebecca Cole, the session invites participants to recreate a garment that once carried not just coins and keys, but women’s independence.
Two Musselburgh fishwives in their gala-dress, with ‘pooches’ visible in front. Photographer and date unknown, East Lothian Library Services.
From the 17th to the early 19th century, women’s pockets were essential companions. Tied at the waist and hidden beneath skirts, they were far larger than the stitched-in pockets of today—capable of holding everything from sewing kits, scissors and thimbles, to letters, spectacles, keepsakes, food, and even the odd bottle. They were, in effect, a portable room of one’s own, offering women privacy and control over a handful of possessions in a world where property was rarely theirs. By the time of the Suffragette movement, the pocket had become a powerful symbol, worn proudly on the outside of clothing as a badge of independence and self-sufficiency.
A pocket, lovingly handmade by a participant in a previous Illuminated Arts workshop.
In the workshop, participants will design and hand-stitch their own pocket using vintage textiles, embroidery threads, beads and trims. Beginners and experienced stitchers alike will be guided through decorative techniques such as appliqué, beading and couching, with the option to complete the piece by hand or on a sewing machine. Alongside practical instruction runs Illuminated Arts’ ethos: that textiles tell stories, and that the act of making invites reflection on memory, identity, and heritage.
This project has a powerful contemporary resonance. Illuminated Arts has been working with elderly and vulnerable groups, using pocket-making as a tool for reminiscence. For those living with dementia or memory loss, sewing becomes a way to anchor identity, with each stitch a small act of recovery. In this context, pockets transform once again—from historical curiosities into vessels of memory, stitched heirlooms that connect past and present.
Further examples created in the Make a Historically Inspired Pocket workshop with Illuminated Arts.
Each ticket for September’s workshop supports this ongoing work, which will culminate in a Pocket Parade and exhibition at the Queen’s House, Greenwich, in Spring 2026. It promises not only a celebration of textile craft, but a communal archive of stories—intimate histories carried in cloth.
Illuminated Arts reminds us that textiles are never neutral: they are repositories of resilience, imagination and meaning. To stitch a pocket is to make more than an accessory. It is to claim a space for the things we choose to carry.
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Further Information:
The following Illuminated Arts Workshops are taking place as part of London Textile Month:
Make a Historically Inspired Pocket with Melissa Jo Smith and designer Rebecca Cole from Illuminated Arts:
Wednesday 3 September, 10-4 p.m., Museum of the Home
Tuesday 9 September, 10-4 p.m., Cherry Garden Hall
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Image Credits:
LEAD: Historic Pocket. Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives.
All other images as credited in photo captions.