The allocators that appeared in the first C++ Standard were designed by the Committee and turned out to not be as useful as expected. Both Electronic Arts ( http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n227... , https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL/ ) and Bloomberg ( http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2005/n185... , https://github.com/bloomberg/bde ) proposed a different approach, which allow what you want. C++11 includes stateful allocators and scoped allocators.