Why has outdoor rainwear got such a bad name?

HOW many of us have seen scholars setting out – or returning from lessons – in driving rain: quivering, shivering, all for the want of a Mackintosh?

Mackintoshes – rubber garments named after the differently spelt Charles Macintosh, first sold in 1824, are distinctly out-of-fashion, particularly for anyone under 25 who count all the Mackintoshes’ successors, or predecessors, distinctly uncool.

Are boys and girls, teenagers, college students worried they’ll be laughed at? Sad? Cosseted by over-protective mums and dads, worried they’ll “catch the death of cold”?

Or do they simply despair where to hang their Mackintosh once they get to school corridor, meeting or public house? Maybe their fear is essential rainwear will be stolen by somebody else. After all, Mackintoshes and all their cousins and variations, but one – the plastic, now nylon, pak-a-mac – cost a great deal of money to buy.

Best known alternative is the anorak, invented, coincidentally, in 1924; first worn by ice-bound brides and their sisters or mothers in the 193Os; a wildly-popular fashion garment in the swinging Sixties; from 1984 onward associated with those “anoraks”, oddballs or “gricers” wearing it: a mildly derogatory label.

No such scorn for the tough woollen, cotton, or latterly polyester, Gabardine invented by Thomas Burberry in 1879, patented by him nine years later.

Nor for that short, close-fitting and hard-wearing Jerkin: a regency garment first worn in the 16th century – sometimes sleeveless, often made of leather; in the 20th century oiled and adopted by the British Army and market traders.

From the age of sailing against the wind came those fabric jackets known as windbreakers (kneelength) windjammers, also windcheaters (thigh-length) and kagools. Hikers and ramblers love the lightweight and waterproof cagoule for its ability genuinely to resist the elements.

Finally, also hooded, is the Parka: its surrounds lined with fur, or faux fur. These days, this long, coldweather jacket is manufactured using synthetic fibres.

Ironically, in the 1970s, wet-through teenagers queued up to purchase a Parka!