Razr in My Pocket

ID: 050802.1619

Fashion Discovery of the Week: The Motorola VS GSM Razr cell phone (see my June 28, 2005 blog, Razr's Edge) fits perfectly in the coin pocket of Levi jeans.

Why is this important, and what does it mean for the future of clothing design?

One of the reasons I like the Razr is because it's thin (0.54 inches) and light (3.35 oz.). My previous cell phone, a Nokia I affectionately nicknamed "The Brick," was bigger; a lot bigger. It weighted down my gym shorts to the point of embarassment. It was a displeasing bulge no matter where or how I carried it. It intruded.

The Razr however, was not without problems. If I put it in my jeans pocket, there was room enough — in fact, too much room — that when driving a car and receiving a call, fishing it out of that pocket was awkward at best; embarassing when there was a bus or other high-center-of-gravity conveyance alongside. Of course, the Razr fits perfectly in a shirt pocket, but my normal mode is shirt-pocketless. Also, carrying anything in a shirt pocket without a covering flap treats the wearer to breath-taking moments watching pocket contents slide onto the sidewalk when you bend forward. (On such occasions, I've discovered most cell phones are very sturdily constructed.)

Levi jeans coin pockets however, are a different story. They are wide enough to easily insert the Razr, yet narrow enough to prevent it from turing sideways. They are deep enough to cover all but about the top quarter inch, but not so deep that the phone becomes difficult to retrieve. And besides, who puts coins in jeans coin pockets anyway? The space is available.

There is a catch. Coin pocket size is not constant. I checked some other brands — Calvin Klein, for example — and found coin pockets too narrow for the Razr. Caveat emptor.

Leg side pockets, as available in Cargo pants, are a good alternative, but suffer from being a bit too wide, and defintely too deep. On the other hand, located as they usually are — at hand level in non-pongids — they're certainly convenient.

In much of the world, cell phones are at least as common as wallets, pens, or pockets full of coins, all of which have informally designated storage areas — pockets — on clothing; especially, men''s clothing. How long will it be until clothing routinely features a special pocket for cell phones? I'd opt to have it located either on an upper, outer arm, below the shoulder on shirts, or midway on the front of the thigh on pants.

There is of course, the Bluetooth option: The Borglike, perennial earpiece designating the wearer as one who must be always connected, but even I reject that as being, well, … too Borglike. A Razr in a jeans pocket is perfect counter-urban techno-trash-faux-haute couture.

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