The raincoat is built from the ground up to look like the unassuming mac of British tradition, but perform at a higher level — which is to say to more ably keep out the rain. It achieves this chiefly by having a big chunk of its surface fortified with two or three more layers of cloth than common standard.
The raincoat has a saddle shoulder. This gives it the smart seams of an inset sleeve, but the soft silhouette of a raglan sleeve. Straddling the channel between the saddle sleeve is a panel — it looks like an over-shoulder yoke — which offers two additional layers of cloth between person and precipitation.
Five pockets adorn the front of the coat. One and two are a pair of large pockets covered by flaps, one on each side. Then, three, on the right side as worn, is a smaller ticket pocket, and this too has its own little flap.
The fourth and fifth pockets are in-seam warmer pockets, stationed below the flapped pockets. Suffice to say, their coordinates are precisely at the point for the comfortable in-plunging of hands, and are also plenty deep to relax the digits once inside. Strong, too: the bags are a tough cotton.
The main pockets have a hidden button fastening, thanks to a fly panel built on the underside of the flaps. This keeps the flaps in place, making them more secure when the contents of the pockets is best kept out of the rain, and generally stops them flapping around as flaps are, inevitably, over time wont to do.
The buttons on the raincoat are horn — middling in colour and matte in finish — and each is a little different from one to the next. They are in that regard as if alpha-keratin snowflakes — such is the beauty of being a product of a high-grade natural material, rather than, say, a plastic replica.
A vent bisects the lower back of the raincoat, which opens up when angling to sit down in, say, a motor car or a mode of public conveyance.
Inside the raincoat are three pockets — bringing the total to eight. There's a small pocket on the left and right sides at chest height, and lower, on the left side, a wider, deeper pocket, which would traditionally have been used for a newspaper, and which serves well for the storage of larger personal belongings.
Maintaining its fervent anti-rain commitment, the raincoat augments its full body and sleeve lining — slinky satin that makes a joy of sliding it on and off — with an extra panel, across the upper back, made from the same material as the outer. It means one's back stays dry even in the dankest downpour.
Called "weatherproof" for a reason, this cloth. Rain, no matter how much, beads up and rolls off. Aramid fibres are highly water resistant, see. It is also as light as a feather, is highly breathable, and has industry-leading heat-transfer properties: when the day is warm, the wearer is cool, and vice-versa.
