I think it needs to become normal for women to return clothes because "the pockets don't work". I'm pretty sure that soon enough women's clothes will have normal pockets.
It's so weird when all the women I know have "favourite" articles of clothing that are purely the only version of a particlar garment they could find that had pockets.
It's not only pockets too it's also often things like the quality of the seam etc.
'If' is the problem. As it is, selling clothing means following trends and offering fast-fashion for a large part of the market. There is a sizeable group of people who are completely fine with getting the latest trend cheaply at Primark. These people might like real pockets (and post memes about it on social media), but you won't activate them to actually make that a requirement. The people who do find brands which simply do offer it (the economic model works so far), and those brands know that this is a feature people like, and they can afford to invest in the extra costs this brings (sewing, design) and the raised cost of their end product. But a large part of the market simply won't bear those costs.
Pockets on dresses is not much different from sustainable clothing (both in terms of production and in terms of durability) and fair pay for people who work in the garment industry: most people do not care enough to change their behaviour (or can't afford to).
Aren't most clothing buyers for and designers for high-street shops women? Yet this is always presented as some sort of conspiracy against women.
We raise girls in this climate and they develop what's called internalized misogyny. At the same time we chastise men who wear things for pure aesthetics for being weak, unmanly and feminine.
Everyone then reinforces this stuff through design and consumer habits.
Then we come online and argure that it's just an inherent thing about the sexes, or that women actually want to be dressed less practical because they're just aesthetic creatures.
It's not a conspiracy where men are trying to hold women back. I hope I didn't imply that. It's the tide of a strong patriarchal system. Yes, it could change faster if it wasn't benefiting those in power so much, but it's inaccurate to say it's a directed conspiracy (though there is an increase of this with a lot of alt-right YouTube stuff these days).