Dear Lorraine
I notice that some of your readers have put forward the ideas of smell and texture as the reasons for wearing or loving raincoats. My own view is different and simple.
Abigail and others mention the top button being fastened, and to me this is the great allure of the raincoat. When I was seven, I went to live with my widowed aunt and her daughter, who was a couple of years older than me. I had an old woollen coat, which was filthy and past being useful, so I had to wear my cousin's old gaberdine, which had the hood unbuttoned from it. There was nothing special about it, until one day when we were going out, and Ruth and I were playing tag with each other, having been told to put on our coats. Ruth was a tomboy, very prone to running, chasing, and lively play. Her mother stopped us, and told Ruth "Top button". Ruth immediately stopped chasing me, and went into the hall. After a moment, she stood in front of the mirror, and very deliberately folded in the lapels of her gaberdine and fastened the top button. The change was dramatic. She became quiet, she stood to attention with her hands at her side, and suddenly was very grown up. She was my elder cousin, and I was very much influenced by her, so I asked her if I had to fasten my top button too. Ruth said that I should, and actually fastened it for me, explaining that we now had to behave ourselves properly, no playing or messing about.
Why this change came about from fastening one button on a coat is beyond me, but I noticed the same with many of Ruth's friends. When they wore their coats open necked, they were lively, chatty, silly. If any one of them was made to button her gaberdine to the neck by her mother, the others would all follow suit, and they would become serious, grown up young ladies. I learned that wearing my coat buttoned to the neck was a sign to be sensible, well behaved, and mature, and the idea still holds true. Ruth, when she went to the High School and wore a uniform, announced that she would have to wear her gaberdine buttoned to the neck for school every day, to remind her that good behaviour was now required. I noticed that those of her friends who always buttoned their necks up were polite, mature and responsible young ladies, while those who wore open necks were less so.
I still love to see ladies in gaberdine trench coats worn fully buttoned, as they seem so much more mysterious, aloof, and fascinating. I had a girlfriend in the early seventies who always wore her trench coat fully buttoned up. She was wonderful chatty company, and very lively without her coat, but the moment her coat went on, it had to be fully buttoned, and she bacame beautiful, mysterious and utterly fascinating - to me and to every other man who met her, it seemed.
So - the answer is simple. The allure of the raincoat is in the fastening of the top button, especially on a double breasted raincoat. Nothing can beat it!
Regards,
Francis
