There are better times to be in the coat business than in the middle of Mother Nature's most concerted baking of the British Isles since 1976.
And while only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, sometimes they don’t have much say in the matter, and must while they’re at it attire themselves smartly. So, if you are to risk hyperthermia in the name of quality outerwear this summer, something like the car coat isn’t as silly as it sounds. The ripstop cloth from which it is made, see, is as light as it gets, and has an open, multi-layered weave of fibres which actively wicks what is politely referred to in literature as perspiration vapour from the body. So bristling, indeed, with advantages, this material, that one could very easily go on and on and on about them.
The cloth is exceedingly breathable, then, and about as intelligent in the thermal-regulation and protection department as something woven could ever possibly be. Helps, too, that the car coat has a one-piece sleeve construction which covers the maximum amount of ground with a minimum use of material, and is pitched and balanced such that it feels on the body all but weightless. None of which is guaranteed to keep anyone crisp and dry on the Central Line in rush hour, not in this heatwave — but, then, what is?
