The Wearable iPhone
Ashley Ogawa Clarke
My first instinct – I think everyone's first instinct – was to poke fun at this project. Part of it is that many of us are waiting, hoping, for a One More Thing™ announcement from Apple before the holidays in the form of new Apple TVs, HomePods, and AirTags – all three with nice last-minute-gift potential. Instead, we got a sock. An insanely expensive sock. A piece of fabric more expensive than any of the three aforementioned consumer hardware products. This is hardly a stocking stuffer, it's more like the stocking you would use if your stuffers were diamonds. In that context, this almost seems like a lump of coal.
But actually...
Having thought about it a bit more – yes, after retweeting a Borat banana hammock dunk – I think I'll take the other side here. No, the Issey Miyake-designed 'iPhone Pocket' is not a product for most people, but something like it increasingly seems to be. Further, this is actually a very Apple-like collaboration. How quickly we forget the history here.
It’s no secret that one of Steve Jobs’s favorite fashion designers was Issey Miyake. The former Apple CEO adopted the Japanese designer’s minimal black turtlenecks as part of the iconic uniform he wore on Keynote stages around the world, though apart from a mutual respect—and the facts that Miyake once appeared in Apple’s Think Different campaign and almost designed an Apple uniform—the duo never officially collaborated.
Until now. This month, Apple releases a collaboration with Issey Miyake, marking the tech brand’s first union with a fashion house since the Apple Watch Hermès in 2015. The product? A curious-looking rectangle of 3D-knitted fabric known as the iPhone Pocket. Robust and cushioned, with stretchy pleats true to Issey Miyake’s iconic Pleats Please design, the accessory is designed to snugly hold any model of iPhone (as well as small essentials like AirPods or a chapstick).
That's right, if you know the iconic Steve Jobs' turtleneck, you know Miyake. And if you know that, you undoubtedly do know that he really did almost design uniforms for Apple – this was all in Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography, as relayed by Wynne Davis for NPR back in 2022 following the news of Miyake's passing:
Isaacson details how the idea for an Apple uniform came from a trip to Japan in the 1980s when Jobs visited Sony and saw that all workers in the factories were wearing matching uniforms. Jobs asked Akio Morita, then the chairman of Sony, about it.
"He looked very ashamed and told me that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day," Jobs said.
Miyake had worked with Sony to create a taupe nylon jacket that easily converted into a vest courtesy of removable sleeves. Isaacson wrote that the uniforms became part of Sony's "signature style" and "it became a way of bonding workers to the company."
"I decided that I wanted that type of bonding for Apple," Jobs said. "So I called Issey and asked him to design a vest for Apple. I came back with some samples and told everyone it would be great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea."
Yeah, that clearly never happened. But it did lead to Jobs' friendship with Miyake and that other, more informal uniform:
"So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them," Jobs said, adding that it was enough to last him the rest of his life.
Sadly, that turned out to be true as Jobs passed away a decade before Miyake did.1 Anyway, in that light, this collaboration is a nice homage to both men. And this wasn't just Apple fully outsourcing the project to the Miyake team, Apple's team collaborated on the project as well – the industrial design team, no less.
"It was like a jazz session. Everyone brainstormed and asked, ‘how can we develop it further?’, ‘should we take it in this direction or that?"
This seems like exactly the type of project Jony Ive would have relished taking up, were he not busy making buttons – a very real and very cool LoveFrom project with Moncler – and, you know, potentially an anti-iPhone device, which will never not be awkward.
And yes, this certainly calls back to Apple's iPod Socks – a product Jobs himself announced two decades ago and many thought was a joke. It was not, and actually these are now remembered at least somewhat fondly. Perhaps it's nostalgia or perhaps it was the fact that you got a six pack – in an Apple rainbow of colors – for $29. Which, as Craig Grannell points out for Stuff, is more like $50 in today's money, but still a far cry from $150, let alone $230 – the two price points for a single iPhone Pocket. Times change. Socks change.
To that end, I think the most important/interesting aspect of this product is actually the continuing trend of turning the iPhone into a wearable. What started with arm bands for runners back in the day is now more of a daily wearable strap for many people, it seems. Hence, Apple releasing their own iPhone Crossbody Strap for the first time this year.
The longer version of the iPhone Pocket is similar to that – though not as practical, as you still have to take the iPhone out of the Pocket to use it. Still, people are clearly clamoring to wear their iPhones more, rather than put them in a pocket or purse. It's another accessory and a way to splash some color upon your outfit. To make your own uniform, in a way.
I'll admit that while I bought a Crossbody Strap to try out, I'm still not sold. I find it awkward to use, having to constantly shift the strap depending on if you're letting it fall to your side or if you're trying to actually use it while walking.2 I'm sure I'm simply wearing it wrong.3
And, not to sound overtly sexist, but something about such an accessory still seems more oriented towards women who perhaps prefer not to carry an increasingly massive smartphone in their pants pockets – if they even have them – or in a smaller purse, where it may not fit. Perhaps that morphs over time – certainly if these devices keep growing in size! – perhaps not. But this is at least somewhat of a bet in the trend towards wearing your phone versus pocketing it.
While this is where I normally bring up the Seinfeld gag about the "European Carry-All", my mind is actually going towards another bit from the show: George Costanza's wallet. I'm old enough to remember when men would largely put their wallets in their back pants pocket – I even did that as a kid, following my father's lead. Boy how times change – these days, in particular if you live/visit a big city, it would seem insane to put your wallet in such a place. The perfect target for pickpockets. Well that and the overall trend to move more of what was in your wallet into your smartphone.
"Important things go in a case!" George Costanza might actually like the iPhone Pocket! Though probably not the price...
One more thing: if nothing else, how could you not love this bit about the iPhone Pocket from Clarke's piece for Vogue:
Faithful to Apple’s history of paper engineering, the packaging comes with ceremony—and a Japanese twist. The long, frosted paper that contains the iPhone Pocket was inspired by the rice paper candy bags used for a Japanese children’s festival where long sweets are given to symbolize prayers for a healthy life ahead. For Miyamae, it evokes a childlike sense of excitement and anticipation: “The idea is that you’re opening a gift that’s full of candy.”
That alone almost makes me want to get one. Almost.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
1 The one time I met Steve Jobs, just a few months before his death, he was indeed wearing his Miyake-designed uniform. ↩
2 I'm trying to still be able to put it in my pocket with the strap on, which is undoubtedly overkill. But actually, I'm mainly trying it not for fashion but for function: I had an iPhone swiped right out of my hand while walking, so this strap gives me more peace of mind, if nothing else. ↩
3 The new "you're holding it wrong." ↩