Umbrellas vs. Raincoats

One of the common things I hear from people who grew up here is that true Seattleites don't carry umbrellas. This seemed strange considering how often it rains here so I started asking the question, "If you don't carry an umbrella, how do you stay dry?"

What I've found is that it comes down to this: raincoats.

So, ok, I can understand that. There are some very good points for this mode of jacket. A lot of times, it doesn't exactly...rain... It's more like walking in a cloud of mist (this is the type of rain  that makes it so hard to drive, but that's another topic). So when the rain's not really falling, it's more 100 % humidity, a raincoat seems like an ideal choice right??

Not quite. Typical raincoats I see around here only come down to your waist. So what about your pants? And for that matter, what about my purse? It's not going to stay dry while walking in the rain (and no, waterproof purses are not ok so don't even go there).

Despite all my complaints above, I'll admit that I bought into the idea and got myself a rain jacket. I spent a long time looking around and I had three basic criteria:
1) Must be 100% waterproof (otherwise, what's the point?)
2) Must not make me look like a shapeless blob
3) Must not be khaki, black, navy blue or dark green

You'd be surprised how difficult that was. Criteria #3 pared the selection down quite a bit but criteria #2 turned out to be the hardest to fulfill. A guy at an outdoor store showed me their "best selling rain jacket!" which was from a well known brand. I turned it around and looked at the seams on the back. They went straight down, no tailoring whatsoever. I couldn't believe so many people were willing to wear this jacket. I ended up finding a nice bright blue jacket with a moderate amount of tailoring but it still isn't something I'm itching to wear all the time.

My coat of choice for the rain now is a wool coat with a hood. I found this while shopping during the Christmas season and it is amazing. Wool is obviously not waterproof but unless you're walking long distances, it's not going to soak through. The hood is made of wool too so it's extremely warm when I put it up and it's heavy enough that it doesn't fall off if it's caught by the wind. Plus it's flatteringly cut, a very pretty color and it doesn't make noise when I walk! I know this isn't easy to find though so I'd recommend getting the same effect by layering a hoodie with a wool coat.

So don't lay down your umbrella just because people would like you to think "it's what we do". It's a tried and true tool to combat the rain, use it! You'll be the one whose hairstyle and MP3 player are all still nice and dry when you walk in the door.