A letter from a reader

At 60, my son looked through the holiday photos and asked why I am holding my phone in every single one.

You should picture me writing this at the kitchen table with a cup of tea going cold beside me, because that is exactly how slowly it has come. I am not a writer, and what another woman keeps in her hands has never been any of my business.

But four women have asked me about these in the last fortnight, two of them standing behind me in the queue at the post office, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it all down properly.

It started with Michael, at this same table, going through the photos from Rottnest on his laptop. Me on the jetty. Me outside the bakery. Me on the bike in the hat. He got about twenty in, and then he stopped, and turned the screen round to me, and said it.

Mum, you are holding your phone in every single one of these. Every one. Why are you never just standing there?

I laughed, and then I looked at the screen properly, and he was right. Phone in the left hand in all of them. In the ones where I am not only holding the phone, I am holding the phone and my glasses, or the phone and the car keys, and in one of them I appear to be holding the phone, the glasses, the keys and a bottle of water, like a woman doing a juggling act she did not volunteer for.

I did not decide to carry my life around in my hands. That is the part I want to be clear about. Nobody decides that. It happens quietly, one pair of trousers at a time, until one day your son is scrolling through a hundred photographs of a woman who is never not holding something.

How it happens

When I actually went looking, I understood how I had ended up like that.

Women's clothes come with two kinds of pocket. There is the one that is sewn shut and stays sewn shut, which is decoration. And there is the one that is real but about as deep as a postcard, so a phone goes in, sits up out of the top of it, and comes straight back out again the first time you sit down.

Pretend or useless. That was the whole shopping centre. Nobody seemed to think a woman might want a pocket that holds the thing she actually carries.

And once that is all there is, you stop expecting anything else. You pick up the bag for a five minute walk to the shop. You hold the phone, because there is nowhere else for it. And you assume that is simply what women's clothes are.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I suspect I am not alone.

I thought my problem was the bag. Every time it annoyed me I bought a smaller one, and the smaller one was worse, because then I had a bag and I was still holding the phone.

It turns out it was never about the bag.

It is about whether the trousers can take the weight. A proper side pocket, deep enough that a phone goes all the way down out of sight, on a waistband that is elastic and wide enough not to drag when you put something in it. The moment both of those are true you walk out of the house with nothing in your hands, and it turns out that is a different way to walk.

It took me until 60, and a hundred photographs of myself, to work that out.

The pants are called the Eileen

They are from Perth Boutique, a small Australian boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. My neighbour found them, which she reminds me of regularly.

They are called the Eileen. A relaxed capri in a soft, light fabric, with an elastic waistband and side pockets set into the seam. Mine are the beige. They come in eight colours, which I will come back to.

The pocket is the part that matters. It is set into the side seam, slanted so your hand falls straight into it, and deep enough that a phone sits right down out of sight. The waistband is elastic the whole way round and wide enough to sit flat, which means it takes the weight instead of pulling down on one side. And the leg is relaxed and comes to the middle of the calf, with a little split at the hem and three buttons beside it, which is the only decorative thing about them and the reason they do not look like something you would garden in.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. They are just a pair of trousers designed by somebody who has had to hold a phone for an hour.

What happened at the markets

The first proper outing was the Saturday markets, which is about as glamorous as it gets around here.

Three women asked me about them before I got to the end of the first row. The woman on the fruit stall started it, because I had paid and put my change away without having to put anything down first.

The third was Lorraine, who I have known for twenty years and who has never once commented on anything I wear. She looked at me and asked where my bag was. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the questions, though, was my hands. I had a coffee in one and a bag of tomatoes in the other, and when I wanted my phone it was there, and when I had finished with it, it went back. I did not put anything down on a stall once, which I had not realised I had been doing at every market for years until I stopped.

The next morning I put them straight back on to take the dog around the oval. Phone in the pocket, lead in my hand, nothing swinging off my shoulder. Completely myself.

Three things I have learned since

One. Empty hands change how you stand. It is not just convenience. It is being in a photograph without something clamped in your fist, and it turns out that was most of what I did not like about the photographs.

Two. The elastic waist is not the compromise I thought it was. It is flat, it is wide, and it is the only reason the pocket works, because a stiff waistband with a phone in the pocket pulls down on one side all day.

Three. The length is the forgiving part. The middle of the calf, with the split at the side, means they go with flats, with sandals and with the shoes I actually walk in, and they do not need to be taken up.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

The Eileen is $112.95. It was $280.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because you can pay that in town for a pair with two pockets sewn shut.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no middleman taking a cut, and they have a sale on at the moment, which is sixty per cent off, with free shipping Australia wide.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and had a proper look before I ordered. Eight colours, and the sizes run from an XS right up to a 5XL, which is an AU 6-8 through to an AU 22-24, all at the same price, which I notice, because for most of my life it has not been.

Then I ordered the black as well, which Michael says was predictable. He is not wrong.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the kitchen with the teapot between us and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have spent years carrying your phone and your glasses in one hand because there has never been anywhere else to put them, not because you like it but because that seemed to be all there was, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a pair of trousers will change your life. They will not. But there is something in walking out of the door with both hands free that I had quietly given up on, and I would rather you did not give up on it too.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and the free shipping goes with it. And it is the beige and the black that go first, which I found out because my neighbour had to wait a week for hers.

I am not holding anything in the photographs any more.

Maggie