Why Carry a Bag When Your Jacket Has 18 Pockets?

The things we carry keep multiplying. Though technological innovations from Apple’s bluetooth headphones to “keyless” car fobs are meant to streamline our lives, they take up precious pocket real estate. And who can get through the day without his phone battery dying? For the Instagram-addicted, portable chargers are the new pacemakers. Though the designers who showed in Paris traffic in the height of fashion, they were serving up the sort of utility more commonly found in the outdoor gear section at REI.

The pocket onslaught began on the first morning of runway shows, when designer Virgil Abloh of Off-White sent out a white fisherman’s vest with matching cargo pants, a look with at least 10 pockets stretching from the model’s shoulders to shins. As the week wore on, many labels from Ami to Lanvin showed four-pocket jackets, with Lemaire’s version extending well below the waistline, adding inches to the lower pockets to accommodate all those snaking charging cables. In a subtler move, Hermès expanded its sport coats’ traditionally tiny ticket pocket (the half pocket that sits just above the right hip pocket) to accommodate a cell phone—a timely update that more brands should employ.

In his final show for Louis Vuitton, designer Kim Jones trotted out a southwest collection inspired by travel, a theme he underscored with overshirts whose double chest pockets were deep enough to fit a passport and a guide book. Or, alternatively, for straphangers whose daily commute is a considerable journey itself, a granola breakfast bar and an iPhone.

Reece Crisp, the head of buying for men at London retailer LN-CC, thinks of utility-minded pieces as an extension of the crossbody bag trend that’s been bubbling up in menswear for a couple of years now. “For ages people have carried crossbody bags at music festivals,” he said, a state of affairs he feels has given rise to different approaches to carrying things. “I think the pocket element on clothes is just an evolution of that.”

The appeal of both utility clothing and the crossbody bag, as opposed to a tote bag or a briefcase, is that you can carry your stuff directly on your body, leaving your hands free and keeping all your can’t-live-without-it electronics as close to your chest as possible.

In striving to keep everything front and center many designers continued to load on the storage options with new configurations of crossbody bags. During his show, Belgian designer Dries Van Noten presented rectangular bags that can really only be called male purses. Lemaire tucked a square crossbody bag underneath its safari jacket, just in case the jacket’s four pockets weren’t enough, while Hermès showed a new two-pouch leather bag worn like a bandolier. CMMN, a nascent London-based company that showed in Paris this season, created a similar look by slinging a wide two-pocket bag across the shoulders of a suit-clad model.

In a conversation after the show, CMMN designer Saif Bakir explained that he and his partner Emma Hedlund wanted to make products that were functional in this “digital age.” Their bags would have accommodated my laundry list of small electronics, but iPad schleppers or anyone working through Walter Issacson’s 624-page biography of Leonardo da Vinci should consider the wearable storage-locker designs of Junya Watanabe. For the second season in a row, Mr. Watanabe collaborated with the North Face and Karrimor to produce jackets that were imaginatively recut from actual backpacks. They’re littered with zippered pockets and elasticated stash spots. Should you choose to grocery shop in one of these jackets, you can always take it off and convert it into a tote bag to haul a few bunches of kale and a jar of Ragù. How could it be a season of pocket proliferation and wearable bags without a literal wearable bag?

Write to Jacob Gallagher at Jacob.Gallagher@wsj.com