The Best Men's Raincoats To Keep You Dry In Style

A raincoat is an essential if you live somewhere with a rainy climate: lightweight, waterproof, and able to fit neatly into a bag so you are covered when the weather turns. But the raincoat is not a single garment with a single use. The technical jacket and the classic trench belong to different registers, and styling them the same way is the most common mistake.

The history explains the split. The raincoat’s ancestors were made from straw and bamboo in ancient China, then from oiled silk and waxed cotton in the West, until Charles Macintosh invented a truly waterproof fabric in 1824 by sandwiching rubber between two pieces of cloth. That is why waterproof coats are still called “Macs” in Britain. The Macintosh was a formal garment—it was worn over suits—and the trench coat that followed it in the First World War carried that formality forward. The technical raincoat is a much later invention, designed for hiking and sailing, and it carries a different set of associations.

For technical jackets, steer clear of anything too formal. Pair with denim and a T-shirt or crew neck. The technical jacket is at home with casual clothes, and it looks wrong with tailoring because the fabrics and the construction belong to different worlds. A waterproof shell over a suit reads as a compromise rather than a choice. A waterproof shell over a hoodie and jeans reads as the jacket doing exactly what it was designed to do.

For a more classically styled raincoat, wear it over tailoring during the week and dress it down with jeans and a hoodie at the weekend. The classic raincoat—the trench, the Mac, the waxed cotton jacket—is formal enough to wear over a suit and relaxed enough to wear over a knit. That range is the point. A trench coat in camel or navy is the most versatile version, because it works with almost everything beneath it and it does not announce the weather.

What to avoid is the raincoat that looks like it was the only thing in the hall. A raincoat should look like it was chosen for the weather and the outfit, not like it was grabbed because nothing else was waterproof. The classic raincoat does this naturally; the technical jacket requires more care, because its casual associations are stronger. The principle is that the raincoat should be the element that handles the weather, and everything else should handle the style.