I am desperate for a stylish rain coat ...

[Karenblixen]

Any ideas, please?

Ideally in black and with a hood (there seem to be lots of coats that are described as rainwear and have no hood - I don't get on with umbrellas and usually have my hands full).

I am not keen on patterned coats and I would be worried that I get fed up with the pattern. I agree Fiscal.

Fiscal Perhaps that's why I like seasalt - although I'm in my 40s I am the size (height especially) of an average 12 year old (if my H&M clothes are to be believed). And I'm v scruffy (if you were being charitable you might say bohemian. But I think scruffy is closer to the mark). I also always wear flat shoes or boots, dress for warmth (layers, cardys etc), have very unquoiffed looking hair (short, curly) (although it is expensively cut every 4 weeks) all of which seems to 'go' with Seasalt style. I think someone who is naturally smart, with fabulous hair, who wears heels and has a grown up handbag etc might well not feel that seasalt matches their style.

I also agree about patterned coats - I have the midnight blue velvet seasalt coat which I ADORE but the pattern is only at the hem. My seasalt Mac is plain grey with a stripy lining and it has attracted many compliments from colleagues (mainly along the lines of 'bit smart for you!' or 'how can you be so dry! It's pouring out there!' Both of which will do me. )

I think a pattern inside can look very nice and smart.

I like the black Kellifray Mac, but why did they put orange piping inside the hood? (Fussy, as I have bought my last raincoat 7 years ago).

That sounds greatHercShipwright - I am getting soaked all the time and now have a cold due to being overtired, stressed and getting soaked and then having to wear my completely soaked clothes. My down coat soaks up water like a sponge, then gets very heavy and the water seeps through onto my skin. Urgent decision making required.

It's a good mac. Functional. But I'm sure so are many others on the market!

My work mac is a Kellifrey, although it's a paler grey than the one they are selling now, and has no orange piping anywhere (I'm a ginge and orange piping would look silly). I also have a patterned tincloth mac which is fab but a little busy for workwear. Again, it's last season's pattern.

I should probably admit that my top favourite mac is my old school mac (glassic gaberdine trench) which is a bit tatty after (gulp)35 years but still does the job. I don't wear that to work though.

I have some of these old favouritesHerc that are pre DC's, even shoes. My excuse is that if it's good quality and lasts then I prefer my old things to something new that looks cheap by comparison if I cannot afford anything nice. Therefore I usually carry on wearing everything until things fall to pieces.

Do you find the Kellifray Mac comes up big?

www.seasaltcornwall.co.uk/waterproof-outdoor-technical-jackets/rain_coats/hip_length/new_product_528a32fbc867_squid_ink.htm

I have this in navy - I love it and it is so waterproof!

I really like Seasalt, but as someone mentioned, for a coat I just got plain as didn't want to get fed up with the pattern.

Lots of Seasalt isn't frumpy... I wear that coat and am only 22! Got a compliment on it from a 16 year old fashionista recently as well!

Karen no I find it fits perfectly. :) It's not designed to be all loose, I don't think. It has a narrow silhouette.

moo My 15 year old DD1 (and for that matter my 10 yo DD2) both love seasalt. But only selected items. And they are both quite boho/scruffy like me too. I should add, we don't aim for 'boho' - it's more, the look we have always had has now come to be defined (probably only for a brief moment in time) as boho. When really it's just dyspraxic cold person scruffy! :)

Herc, that sums me up, LOL

I have grown up hand bags and (on a good day) swishy hair ( thanks to babyliss big hair), and my friends say I look elegant, but I am not really. At all.

It is just that at 6ft and hour glassy, I look ridiculous in Boden, White Stuff and especially Seasalt.

I lusted after a Seasalt mac and went to John Lewis especially to try it on, and I was so deflated, I looked like a cross between my 12 yr old self and my 76 yr old mum!

I like Seasalt, it just looks wrong on me for the reasons you mention.

I have a H&m belted mac which looks ace, but nit properly waterproof!

Another vote for Seasalt. My coat is light, properly waterproof and I feel good in it

But then I am a very scruffy casual dresser

I think it's great that there are different types of shop for different types of dresser. When I was a teen and in my 20s the only places I could find clothes I felt comfortable in were second hand shops and market stalls. Not that I'm comparing seasalt to second hand shops, but fashion dictated a very structured look in the 80s and early 90s (if you weren't in jeans or shorts and tights - which I mainly was) and most of the mainstream shops toed that line religiously. These days there is so much more diversity and I think that's a really good thing. I am always a little :( when I see people dismiss those who have different clothing choices to them as frumpy. I was similarly :( during that period when if you didn't have poker straight hair and have an intimate relationship with ghds you were widely considered strange. I'm very glad that time has passed!

You should never take it personally if someone calls an item of clothing frumpy.

If I call something frumpy, I mean it would look frumpy on me.

I break lots of S&B rules myself, currently wearing baggy leggings...

I don't think you can generalise that certain clothes look frumpy. It all has to do how you wear them, if they suit you and if you are happy wearing them.

I will probably look like Little Red Ridinghood in the Seasalt coat with the pink quilting, to be realistic.

X-posted Fiscal

I don't know why a lovely coat had to be ruined by putting orange piping inside the hood framing your face when you have it up. Who wants orange piping round their face? (Obviously a lot of people who buy that coat).

Fiscal I'm currently wearing pyjamas! But I'm off to catch a train soon and need to sort out my work wardrobe for the next 3 days (needs to be smart (I'm speaking at a thing) and yet practical (lots of walking ahead due to the London tube strike). And I may well wear my seasalt mac (although I'd prefer not to since I'd quite like to wear a bulky jumper on the doubtless freezing train up to town!).