Rainwear Central Rainwear Forum

This is designed for Forum members of a certain age from an era when the word "mackintosh" automatically meant "rubber mackintosh"
My top three would be: Mac Mac of Dorset. Who uniquely manufactured their own in-house rubber material named Rubberette. It had a dazzling shine, a wonderful rustle & high smell once warm. Rubber inside & out. A true fetishist's mackintosh as the manufacturer advised against wearing them in the rain as the shiny surface disappeared completely, if only temporarily. They also made superb rubberised satin & rubberised tafetta macks. I owned all of these & made love to them all many, many times.

Weather or Not for the quality of their mackintosh tailoring. I had a double rubbered SBR with a thick red matt-rubbered interior. Very heavy to wear but no such problem in bed.

Ectomorph for their beautifully sewn rubber dresses, lingerie etc of which I had a couple of items. Well worth the considerable expense.

There are many more of course & older members will have their favourites.

Well now, there's good old South Bucks Rainwear with free brochures sustaining me and many others in my youth. Good marketing and a lot of us would buy copiously later in life. They sold quality rubber mackintoshes and many latex items. A particular favourite of mine was a Japanese made three quarter length parka, yellow rubber on white cotton with an understated aroma albeit very pleasant. Another very good supplier but only extant for a short while was Gayetime Mackintoshes. They sold top quality SBR macks of which I bought at least three. In the eighties Cocoon sold a French Police mackintosh of superb quality. This was a three quarter length shiny black rubber on a blue cotton lining garment with a strong aroma, quite heavenly. Others may have their own memories of the likes of Sealwear, Kastley, Vedamacs etc. By the way if you go on Pinterest and enter Rubber Mackintoshes, there are thousands of photos of interest there.

Ah yes, I remember them well.

I had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with the proprietor of Gayetime Mackintoshes and his lovely wife. I still have their catalogue and some of their magazines. He reckoned that it was the postal strike in the early 70's that did for his business. Astonished to be told that they were pressurised into "toning down" some parts of their magazines-innocuos as they were.

Another manufacturer who was held in high regard in Mackintosh Society circles was Angus from Kingfisher in Northern Scotland who supplied Ladies Rubberised Satin mackintoshes in a range of vibrant colours.

Arthur and Audrey of Lakeland Elements/Monsoon were long standing stalwart supporters of the Society too.