Rain Gear

With all the rain we've been having this summer, I thought it might be a good idea to get a lightweight rain jacket of some sort. Indeed, it's a little odd that I've managed to get along without one for this long, but I'm starting to feel a little silly on the rainy but warm days, standing at the bus stop wearing shorts and holding an umbrella. So it seemed like a simple jacket in a breathable fabric with a hood would be a smart choice.

I do have a waterproof rain coat with a removable hood that I like, but it's too warm to wear in summer and is kind of large on me anyway (it's cut very full to take a fleece liner, plus it's a tall; I got it on clearance for next to nothing and that's all they had left). And while I know that Gore-Tex fabrics have long been the standard for waterproof breathability, I was hoping to get away with not spending so much, and there are newer fabrics that claim to do the same thing just as effectively but cost less.

I thought finding something suitable would be a quick task online, but it's become one of those things that lands in the category of "easier said than done." This part of the outerwear category is dominated by makers of outdoor clothing like Patagonia, The North Face, and Marmot that make products that sell in outdoor stores like REI for premium prices. A simple rain jacket from one of these companies can easily run upwards of $200, which is simply ridiculous. I was hoping to get away with spending $50 or less. Also, many of these jackets are really, really ugly.

Somehow my online wanderings led me to the web site of a company in New Jersey called Campmor that sells all kinds of outdoor gear. I was familiar with the company, because my brother has been getting their quaint catalogs (which are printed on newsprint paper and are filled with line drawings of the merchandise) for probably three decades. I occasionally get them myself, but I never look at them, and I had never been to their site (which, thankfully, features photos of the products instead of drawings).

Campmor carries the fancy brands, but they also have clothing manufactured for them under their own brand. I have no problem with house brands as long as they're decently made, so I browsed their selection of rain gear and decided to buy a jacket called Storm Venture (I think this is meant to reference a similar style of jacket made by The North Face called Venture). Campmor's jacket had a "regular price" of $65 but was being offered for $39.99 in five colors. It looked plain enough, so I chose "cobalt" and ordered it. I thought to myself, that was easy.

It arrived in two days via UPS (New Jersey isn't that far away), and when I unpacked it, I could see right away that the color was off, definitely not anything you would call cobalt. Not a terrible shade of blue, but not what I wanted. This is not that uncommon; monitors render colors differently, the art department decides to pump up the colors so they pop off the screen better, etc. But more importantly, the thing just looked cheap, because it was cheap.

Of course I needed to try it on before making a final decision. I unfolded it and started to unzip it. The zipper gave me a lot of trouble, which was another bad sign. Then I saw the interior of the jacket. Many of these jackets have sealed or taped seams to ensure their waterproofness; in this case, it looked like someone had literally slathered clear tape over all the inside seams. It made the outside look classy. I did try it on, but I already knew it was going back. Just for fun, I showed it to a coworker. She made a face and asked me how much it cost. I told her, and she made a different, even more unhappy face.

I packed it up and sent it back for a refund, but that means I still don't have a jacket. I spent some time browsing some other sites, and found myself back at old faithful L.L. Bean. I guess I should have looked there in the first place. There are two styles that I'm interested in, one of which is a breathable fabric called TEK 2.5 (seriously, that's the best name they could come up with?) and the other is Gore-Tex. This breaks my price rule, but I'm starting to think that I'll be more satisfied in the long run by buying what I really like. Also, the proximity of a Bean store means I can try on the jackets and inspect them in person. But it will probably stop raining as soon as I buy something.