Thank you to the anonymous commenter who pointed out this dress, which belongs firmly in the "close, no cigar" category. I mean, obviously I am on the side of pockets. Good pockets are good. Bad pockets are worse than no pockets — kind of the way crappy chocolate is worse than no chocolate, because it takes up space without actually satisfying the underlying need.

These are not cute enough to be decorative (and I abhor strictly decorative pockets anyway) and you couldn't put anything of substance in them without weighing down the dress unattractively. Even the model isn't *really* putting her hand in the pocket — she's just holding it there awkwardly, almost as if the pocket were someone she didn't really like but was being forced to take a chummy fake-hug picture with.

This kind of pocket is really just for little-girl dresses. On little-girl dresses they are small enough that you really can't put anything heavy in them (the odd rock or marble notwithstanding) and they are allowed to be patterned, edged with ruffles, appliqued, you name it. When I was five or six I had a dress that was an "artist's smock" with an appliqued pocket in the shape of a palette. Man, I loved that dress, and I loved that pocket, but–I was five. When I was five I also loved the Brady Bunch, scaring myself silly imagining that Dracula was REAL, "Encyclopedia Brown" and green Starburst, none of which I enjoy today.

So. Ten points for Gryffindor (or, I guess, ABS Allen Schwartz) for trying pockets, but five points off again for screwing it up.