Rainwear Central Rainwear Forum

Im quite new here. Hope you dont mind me contributing!!!
As per my name tag, I particularly like shiny black rubber and or shiny pvc vinyl raincoats. Prefer with hoods but beggars cant be choosers. However, they seemed to have disappeared off the radar on the retail front. Two or three years ago, all the main high street fashion shops had lovely shiny macs and anoraks hanging up for sale. Where have they all gone? Except for the real ' specialist supppliers', which are a little on the rich side, I seem to have run out of places to shop! Can anybody help?

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I have to agree. Unfortunately fashion is fickle. Rubber never really has hit the high street. Vinyl or pvc will show up again, there will always be a demand for it. All the members on here for starters!

What you really need is a time machine to go back to the heyday of the rainwear shops in the major towns.
My memory was the Nottm. Rainwear Co, on Chapel Bar. A large double fronted shop where you stepped into the forecourt of the shop entrance to see the window displays before passing further in towards the door into the shop. The displays were wonder of beauty of the various rainwear they sold, everything from ladies and gents rubber lined macks, through to waterproofs for everyday use and walking/hiking. I had one of my earliest oilskin cycle capes from here. And yes.....when the door of the shop opened there was the wondeful aroma of rubber in the air.
Sadly we lost them in the early to mid 1960's

Sadly today the shops like this do not exist and always smell so clinical.
M&S very rarely sell decent rainwear. the shop in Nottm. called Cocoon had a few interesting items but not rubber.
Primark had a few shiny PVC macks and also shiny polyurethane jackets, but that was a couple of years back.

One shop that could be relied on to have decent rainwear that was fashionable was BHS, but sadly there demise put an end to that.

So lets imagine we have a time machine and where would you go.
Mac Mac at Brimley Mill, Weather Vain (in the old days) or up to see A & A's shop 'Big Six' in Ambleside and later when they expanded and opened Lakeland Monsoon at their home.
Happy Days...................So where would you travel back to????

Don't forget, we have had two years of mostly cancelled music festivals and large outdoor events.
With car ownership being so high, a lot of people don't own proper rainwear except for hikers and walkers who have expensive, dull Goretex stuff generally. The only exception seems to be mums pushing buggies.
So until festivals are back on, in a big way most people won't be buying funky shiny rainwear.
Most shops probably won't have much in stock this year as it has to be designed, made and shipped from the far east which happens months in advance.
Fingers crossed for next year.

I would agree that it is difficult to find shiny rainwear now, wether shiny proofed nylon or PVC. Back in the 1980's and early 90's I occasionally used to go to a yacht's chandlers in Plymouth Devon, which sold a wide range of Peter Storm cagoules, but when I looked in there about 1995 the stock seemed depleted and i asked the shop assistant why, only to be told "that's the last of the old style Peter Storm I'm afraid". Wish I could find somewhere like that now.

If anyone has a spare C$275K they don't know what to do with, would like to move to the pacific north coast of British Columbia, Canada, in the rain forest with rain 300+ days a year, were no one thinks twice about wearing all types of rainwear, this is for you:

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2258 ... rt-zone-52

Not that this will help much but try online at Weathervain or Hamilton Classics. Now these are not cheap but you will get whatever you want.

I do enjoy going into the high street cheap outdoor shops to see what nylon cagoules they have in and trying some on. Regatta always has some.