Listing to Port

6166 Clothes
 -6166.1 Those covering the whole body
    –6166.11 Bear costumes
       —6166.111 Those that are sweated in for charity
       —6166.112 Those that are meant to fool bears
          —6166.1121 Bears are totally fooled, not sniggering at all, no, it’s just a cough, damp out here isn’t it
    –6166.12 Deep-sea diving suits
    –6166.13 Upper-air leaping suits, to be worn by the fish people as they come visiting
    –6166.14 Those worn by sinister science people in films
       —6166.141 To be accessorised by items that beep, little lights that go from side to side, and (this season) stripes
    –6166.15 Those that cover exactly as much of the body as a charity bear costume but which people seem bizarrely more keen to ban
 -6166.2 Those covering the upper bits of the body
    –6166.21 Hats
       —6166.211 Bobble hats
          —6166.2111 Those having a bobble at or larger than the size of the wearer’s head
       —6166.212 Hats (other)
    –6166.22 Balaclavas
    –6166.23 Neck things
       —6166.231 Shakespeare neck things
       —6166.232 Those covering the necks of people who are not amused except they are a bit amused really they just have to keep really still for the photo and not do mouth things
    –6166.24 Torso clothing
       —6166.241 No sleeve
       —6166.242 Some sleeve
       —6166.243 Infinite sleeve
       —6166.244 Non-euclidian sleeve
          —6166.2441 Those into which it is unwise to put a limb you are fond of
          —6166.2442 Those which can maybe be explained away with glove puppets
 -6166.3 Those covering the lower bits of the body
    –6166.31 Bottom flaps
    –6166.32 Modest pantaloons
    –6166.33 Drapery
    –6166.34 Ultra- or mega-drapery
       —6166.341 That which is concealing small animals, humans, tents, settlements etc.
       —6166.342 That which is concealing the wearer having a sneaky outdoors wee
 -6166.4 Those covering small or indistinct areas
 -6166.5 Those covering the left or right side of the body
 -6166.6 Those not really covering anything at all
    –6166.61 Those belonging to the emperor and purchased rather recently
    –6166.61 Those made of space, time, woo, memories, or other charmingly magic-realism clothing material
 -6166.7 Those that act more generally as a barrier between something and something else
    –6166.71 The veil (mystical)
    –6166.72 The human-cosmos barrier method (general)
    –6166.73 Those that are actually a wall or something but are temporarily being used to hide a butt

1. When you have grown an extra leg and the cost and inconvenience of getting jeans altered to fit it is too great
2. If the jeans are on fire
3. When jeans have become the symbol of a fascist uprising in your place of residence
4. If you are stranded on a desert island and you really need something to catch fish in and the only things you have to hand are your clothes
5. If you really need to take your clothes off, for example to wash them or have sex or something
6. If someone has drawn a map showing the way to the treasure on your jeans and you need to have a look at the bits that you can’t easily see by turning round
7. When you have become too old for wearing jeans, for example if you have outlived all of the world’s jeans factories and everyone else is now rocking space onesies or nudity

1. The Revenge of Lost Pages. A dress that one may summon together by means of an ancient spell, known to the librarians at Alexandria and passed down in fire ever since. To make the Revenge of Lost Pages you will need a vial of old-book-dust, an inverted page thrice-dogeared, twenty shillings to pay your predecessor’s late fees and the legendary slice of bacon that librarian lore has it was once left in a returned book as a bookmark. The Revenge of Lost Pages summons from across time all of the remaining pages from books that you started but did not finish, stitching them into a dress of a design appropriate for the amount of material therein. If you have abandoned a lot of books mid-way through, for example, it is a relatively cheap way to get an unusual wedding dress. It is rather hard to remove the Revenge of Lost Pages, so you should be careful about summoning it to situations where it may be unwise to wear paper.  
2. The Emperor’s Old Clothes. A small travelling wardrobe featuring a selection of bodysuits designed to replicate the naked bodies of various current and historical emperors and empresses, allowing anyone who feels so inclined to re-enact the fable in more punishing climates without having to experience cold or nudity. The phone number to hire the Emperor’s Old Clothes is one of the things that rulers receive on accession to the throne, along with a nice shiny crown and a tea set from which to elegantly drink the blood of unicorns.
3. The Robes of the High Lord of the Navel. Woven from the delicately-spun thread of pure bellybutton fluff, the Robes of the High Lord of the Navel are a shimmering grey and can be used to pad around in unobtrusively at night. They may be hired from the London Guild of Navel Gazers for a small fee by people with interesting bellybuttons; for example, those who have had stomach surgery or have recently been pregnant.
4. The Message. There are eleven instances of the Message known about. They all were constructed in the same way: a lone walker would come across an object in the woods half in and half out of our physical dimensions, with moving things massed about it a little like calligraphy serifs. They would let it be known that the walker could become a host for a message to humankind. The beings were very persuasive. Taking their alien inks, they would write the message on the walker’s skin in great bold characters, layer upon layer of them, until the walker’s body was grey-black with alien inkstuff. The ink would dry into a thick, warm bodysuit that would later need to be cut off at the local hospital. No way of separating the letters could be found. Putting old, shed Messages on is said to be enormously comforting. They are normally kept in government Repositories of Things.
5. Hitler’s jumper. A white, woolly cable-knit number that may, or may not, once have been worn by Adolf Hitler. The right to wear Hitler’s jumper is awarded as a penalty for invoking Godwin’s Law in the face of an historically-appropriate comparison of something to Nazi Germany. As such, the roll of temporary owners is long and complex and generally the official custodian of the jumper, a rather morose dachshund, is not able to deliver the jumper to each owner before having to reroute in an attempt to reach the next one. Nevertheless, the jumper does sometimes reach its destination; so, if you should find a jumper-carrying dachshund at your door one morning, it may be worth reassessing your recent online activity.  

1. Being as how we sometimes want to sit on the toilet and look at our phones without flagging up to the world that we have chosen to take something with us that  is not strictly necessary for the task of excretion; or similarly
2. Being as how some of us do menstruating and need stuff to deal with that and may not wish to announce this to the room; and
3. Being as how we may someday be in a contest of riddles deep underground, and the answer to ‘what have I got in my pocket’ is an easy one if we have no pockets, and thus we will end up eaten and there will be no-one to defeat the dragon; and
4. Being as how we sometimes need something to do with our hands when slouching around, and crossing arms or fiddling with things attracts a certain breed of amateur psychologist; and
5. Being as how a lady sometimes needs to have to hand a discreet contraceptive after she has jumped from a helicopter, abseiled down a building, drilled through the back wall of a bank, fought off a few security guards, picked the lock, taken the diamond and hijacked the getaway car, not to mention needing a place to put the diamond; and
6. Being as how one sometimes needs a warm place to put a baby kangaroo whilst one searches for its mother; and
7. Being as how losing a bag is significantly easier than losing a pocket, the latter occurrence requiring one either to get naked, battle something with claws or have really badly-made clothes; and
8. Being as how you can pull pockets inside-out and use them as sock puppets when you are bored:

we, the undersigned, are of the opinion that DRESSES AND SKIRTS SHOULD HAVE POCKETS; and that furthermore TROUSERS FOR THE FEMALE-IDENTIFED SHOULD HAVE POCKETS TOO; and that furthermore these pockets should be actual functional ones that do not spill their contents when you sit, squat or bend; that fake pockets are Satan’s spunkstains and let us not speak of them further; that good pockets are big enough to hold at least two of a wallet, a phone, keys and a handkerchief and that given the fundamental symmetry of human beings it is usually no hardship to put at least two pockets on; and that frankly we do not give a fuck about the fabric draping marginally differently compared to the ability to conveniently carry stuff around in the way that people with penis-enabled trousers take for granted.