Rainwear Central Rainwear Forum

What was the first item of rainwear that you bought for yourself with your very own money? How did it make you feel buying it and owning it?

For me it was a shiny blue jacket. I bought it from a department store. It had a towelling lining and the shininess was gorgeous, but I soon found out that the texture was quite boring after a couple of times of wearing, the nylon feel disappeared. Later on I found that this was a trick used by manufacturers to make the material seem more substantial and expensive than it was. I did wear it out, and always loved the way it looked on. At the time of buying it was a between that jacket and grey nylon one which was not very shiny but had a much nicer feel.

By the time I had enough of my own money to afford something, men’s plastic macs were already very rare and even Woolworths had stopped selling them. My second purchase was several years later on the form of a black nylon unisex tracksuit - proper crinkly and shiny nylon. Bought from Millets, but more sporty than camping gear, I remember the young shop assistant saying she was thinking of getting one for herself (which I am sure was a selling technique) but made me feel quite special. I would have loved to have seen her wearing it.

It wasn’t until I was on the verge of splitting up with my girlfriend that, feeling quite depressed, I found a plastic rain suit in the same Millets. They had it in white/silver or dark blue/silver, but all were children’s sizes, but there was one white set in “large youth” which I told the assistant I was buying for my girlfriend for a holiday in Wales. It was for me and was nice and tight, and only worn solo in the bedroom, but was my first purchase of my favourite material - plastic. Many years later I passed a girl wearing, what I recognised as the blue/silver version of the same suit.

JM

My first purchase was a couple of cheap nylon cagoules from a market. I felt a bit strange buying them but I'll never forget the excitement of getting them home, putting them on and enjoying the feel of them.
I went back to the same market within a few days and bought a couple more in different colours. This time I felt a bit more conspicuous buying them as the same people were working and my brain was thinking "they're watching you, they know what you are" when the reality was they properly couldn't have cared less. Again, getting them home and onto my person made me easily forget all about that.

Ilovecagoules wrote: ↑September 21st, 2021, 10:56 pm My first purchase was a couple of cheap nylon cagoules from a market. I felt a bit strange buying them but I'll never forget the excitement of getting them home, putting them on and enjoying the feel of them.
I went back to the same market within a few days and bought a couple more in different colours. This time I felt a bit more conspicuous buying them as the same people were working and my brain was thinking "they're watching you, they know what you are" when the reality was they properly couldn't have cared less. Again, getting them home and onto my person made me easily forget all about that.

It’s weird that we feel judged for something so innocent, but I felt exactly the same when buying items. Having recounted my first purchase I then remembered having a light blue nylon blouson style jacket when going out with the girl I eventually split with. The funny thing is that I cannot recall where I bought it from. I think I wore it in public, but don’t really remember. It is strange that my memory is playing tricks on something so important to me. I also bought a multi-coloured nylon cagoule with a lovely rubbery lining which, due to rain, that same girlfriend wore it once, and I had a photograph of her in it that made it look much shinier than it actually was.

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My first purchase of any 'real' raingear was a lovely black Belstaff cycle cape, along with my wellingtons I had much fun whilst cycling

My first rainwear purchase was an incredibly crappy yellow rainsuit. The fabric around the armpit, elbow, and crotch started coming apart after being worn a few times and the buttons would break very easily. At the time I was 13 or 14 and that was as far I was going to get with $20! The years after that were more of the same - various rainsuits and raincoats purchased online with quality all over the place - mostly crap. It wasn’t until my first year of college that I started purchasing high quality rain gear such as Grundens and Helly Hansen. I have been hooked on the Scandinavian rainwear ever since!

Mine was a white latex raincoat frim South Bucks Rainwear. My second purchase came from Millets, a PVC mac
Fun times.

A shiny black PVC over-jacket from a workman's shop when I was in the sixth form at school. I wore it to school hockey matches on winter Saturdays. The first time our hockey master quipped, "Is it suede?" By tradition we played two of the local girls' school teams in "friendly" games during the Easter holidays with the respective goalkeepers, of whom I was one, swapping sides. What I saw from my position at the back was certainly a vast improvement on my usual view. One of the girls turned up in a then very fashionable black and white quartered plastic mac of the Op-Art variety.

Mine was a grey and black puma cagoule, i wanted a red peter storm but my mum wouldn’t let me buy one, don’t know why, they were cheaper and probably better than the puma but mum thought the puma one looked cool!

Later on I started buying cagoules from charity shops when they started appearing in the high st and would spend many hours happily trawling them

I well remember my first fetish purchase, it was a yellow cycling cape. The beauty of it was I was able to wear it out when on my bike and no one would think I had a roaring hard on under that cape. Bliss.