Pouch, strap, bra – it’s not easy to store your mobile phone in a chic way.
Where do you put your smartphone when you don’t need it? As long as the functionalities of WhatsApp, Instagram, ChatGPT etc. have not yet become second nature via a chip implant, this question arises – and fashion has ideas. For example, you can invest 1,050 euros in the leather “Fold Me Pouch” from Louis Vuitton’s “Art de Vivre” line, a luxury mini shoulder bag just for your device. The phone case with strap from Prada made of recycled nylon is cheaper: 480 euros. Either way, you end up carrying one more bag around with you. Or you can do like Dua Lipa and Justin Bieber and tie a “wristlet” from String Ting into the holes in the silicone protective cover. Then the phone dangles around your wrist on a heart, bow or gummy bear bead necklace.
Basically, the strategy of outsourcing and sprucing up contradicts the basic idea of the smartphone. It wants to integrate more and more functions into itself and get closer and closer to the body, or into it. According to research, it has long been a part of the body; most people have fully integrated it into their body schema, i.e. into their idea of its spatial extent and position in space. Which is why it may feel like you’ve lost your head when you can’t find your phone anymore.
The question remains what men can do when they don’t wear a bra
I think of this when a woman sits across from me on the regional train who has a very physical relationship with her phone: every few minutes she sticks it through her cleavage, probably into her bra, and then pulls it out again. The gesture seems almost suggestive and is reminiscent of how strippers tuck tips under their bra straps. She may be wearing a sports bra with a “smartphone pouch,” such as the “Stash N Run” from Lululemon. Keys and credit cards also fit in it. Practical.
The question remains what men can do when they don’t wear a bra. Sticking your smartphone in your waistband like a gun? Sitting then becomes rather difficult. But it could fit lower in the crotch. Then, in reference to Mae West, one could ask: “Is that a phone in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” There are also meggings, i.e. tight sports pants for men who would never wear leggings. Some of them have a pouch at the front for a so-called “modesty pad”, which we translate as “modesty cushion”. So that the soft tissues are not so clearly visible. The smartphone could also fit in this pouch. In any case, manspreaders would have access at any time.
This column first appeared in Musikexpress issue 3/2024.