Clothes are full of details that outlived the reason they were added. A pocket sized for a watch nobody carries, a rivet that stopped seams from tearing on miners' work pants, a loop or a notch that made sense for a job most of us have never done. Garment makers rarely remove something people have learned to expect, so the feature stays and the reason gets forgotten.
The answers here go back to the source wherever possible: company archives, patents, and museum collections that hold the original garments. Where the story people repeat doesn't match the record, we say so.
Clothing
The small pocket on the front right of jeans is a watch pocket. Levi Strauss & Co. says it was part of its first riveted waist overalls in 1873, made to hold a pocket watch, a common accessory at the time. Watches moved to wrists, but the pocket stayed, and today it carries coins, tickets and other small things.
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