Rainwear Central Rainwear Forum

In the 70s, there were tons of racks with raincoat for her daughtersPVC wear in the department stores.
Did you go out and strolled around the racks full with PVC coats, and watched others trying them on or even buying them ?
I did so when I was 17, I went out to the big department stores and strolled around the racks, especially on rainy days.
There were alot of mothers, who were looking at the racks, and they were interested in buying a a raincoat for her daughters.
I even had the chance and it happened, that a mother asked me if I could try a raincoat on to see if it would fit to her daughter....
I was so lucky to help out....really.

what were your best sightings when other ladies and her daughters wanted to buy a pvc raincoat ?
have you watched other people selecting raincoats from a rack, and trying thrm on ?

It was possible to buy plastic raincoats even up until the mid 1990's, then they started to disappear from shops.

I used to love going to marine chandlery stores where they sold the heavy PVC oilskins for yachting. They would normally have lower end rain gear in just PVC, not goretex as they do now and there would be quite a few people trying them on.

My favourite hunting ground though used to be government surplus stores, at the time they used to stock lots of types of rainwear. They would have racks of the shiny Yellow PVC long raincoats that construction and rail workers used to wear, the thick matt 2 piece pvc rainsuits and often the ex-military shiny Black oilskins which I still have now.

The smell in these shops was incredible, the thick wool jumpers they sold and the plastic smell of the rows of raincoats. The female assistants would not turn a hair either, in helping you try on lots of mackintoshes until you found the 'perfect' raincoat and would fuss around you trying on souwesters and wellingtons - it was great at the time, but now in the past unfortunately.

The best shop I used to visit was a surplus store in Plymouth called Ross & son. They used to sell every type of protective gear imaginable - I bought a few stunning raincoats from there and never paid more than about £15.

On one occasion I must have tried on about six PVC Black raincoats with a middle aged woman, until I decided on the best one to buy.

By then the store was closing for the day as I paid at the counter. It was one of the Grey autumn days in Plymouth when the rain would fall in heavy sheets for hours on end, when she asked me why I did'nt wear the mac as it was raining so hard.

So, in the end we were talking while she closed the shop. She had'nt brought a coat to work, so she 'borrowed' a very shiny Green plastic raincoat for herself and we walked together through the heaviest rain to her bus stop half a mile away.

I saw her again three or four times after that, but she never admitted openly about any deep interest she had for rainwear, though I think she knew instantly about the effect it had on me and made the most of my enjoyment wearing them.

For all the customer service claims that businesses make these days, they could not match the shop assistants that existed in those days for making sure a customer tried on the raincoats until they were satisfied it was the right one, or the helpful information that they knew about what they sold, like how waterproof a garment was, how it would stand up to very heavy prolonged rain, or just be shower-proof etc.

Sadly, I think those days while consigned to the past are ones which I think most of us here would like to see again.

I can see the attraction some people may have for assistants fussing round but I have to say I much prefer browsing in shops without being pestered by pushy assistants. I do recall the racks of raincoats in department stores and the attraction they had, would always linger by them when the opportunity arose whether people were trying them on or not

C&A comes to mind in the late 70's
Got my then girlfriend one of their heavy pvc macs.

I can remember one rainy Saturday afternoon in C & A in Swindon. My girlfriend was trying on clothes in the Womenswear department and I was bored out of my skull. Until I noticed a sales assistant helping a man and his wife with some raincoats - mackintoshes to be precise - brick-red single breasted double textured rubberised macs with a nice tie-belt too. She helped the woman on with the mac and even wore one herself and rubbed the skirts of the mac together hard to bring out the rubber aroma for the man to smell. Two women parading up and down in red mackintoshes with the accompanying rustling rubbery sound effects was a wonderful sight, I managed to move a little closer to catch the aroma as well . The man bought two of the red macs , one for his wife and one for her sister , so the sales assistants efforts were worthwhile. I think they were about £40 each, quite pricey at that time.
I spoke to her afterwards while pretending to be interested in one of the macs for my girlfriend and she did the whole performance again for us. Unfortunately my girlfriend was not keen on rubber macs or she might have got another sale out of us too. Sadly it was not to be although Sharon my girlfriend being a tall, busty brunette looked sensational in the red rubber mac and I really wanted her to have one of the macs but she wasn't very keen. An entertaining half-an-hour on a wet Saturday in Swindon.
Apparently the red macs were one of C&A's top selling lines in the late 70's but were never re-stocked - I wonder why ? I certainly remember seeing at least a couple of dozen of them in Swindon, Bath and Bristol around that time , and for a few years afterwards too.