When my friend arrived at my place for dinner last week, she looked pretty normal. Apart from one thing. Slung across her torso was a multi-coloured rope with her phone attached.
I looked closer. Was it an excessively long lanyard? A spaghetti-thin handbag? No. Apparently, it’s a phone strap.
As it turns out, the concept is pretty simple. Picture an elongated necklace, that you can wear like a cross-body bag, only it exclusively carries your device. The apparatus is having a moment in general right now: are often seen sporting beaded lanyards attached to their phones.
And the accessory has even made its way to the frontbenches: deputy prime minister wore one – albeit a more professional and plain version – to a meeting at 10 Downing Street last month. In practical terms, the phone strap might make perfect sense, since the average person in the UK is glued to their phone for – so why not make it a permanent fixture in your outfit? But, really, the trend hasn’t been inspired by our limb-like attachment to our devices at all. It’s just a way to distract women from noticing the lack of pockets on our clothes.
Women’s clothes have rarely been designed for practical purposes. It’s something that has bothered me for most of my life. That’s why I leap for joy when I find a dress or skirt with in-built pockets (or get jealous when I see a carefree man stroll around without a bag).
In reality, most of my clothes have no pockets at all. Sometimes, at first glance, a ga.