There are few more beautiful sights than a pretty girl kitted out in shiny yellow rainwear from head to toe. Only those who who enjoy looking at, or wearing rainwear in the same way I do will understand the gamut of emotions that this utterly delightful vision from Heaven invokes inside me.
I don't know why, but shiny yellow rainwear, more than any other colour provokes a particularly strong emotional response deep within my brain. There's something about the way that shiny yellow vinyl (or PVC) looks and smells which just does it for me more than anything else. I don't even know - or understand - why, or how this happened. Why do some people develop a rainwear fetish while most don't? The vast majority of people view rainwear as little more than an utilitarian accessory.
I think that my fetish really began when Mum bought me a shiny yellow raincoat to wear to kinder. I ended up wearing it, along with a succession of similar macs before being deemed too old for such childish rainwear. I remember helping me put it on if it was raining before leaving the house for school almost every day during our (then) much wetter winters before global warming began to affect our climate and not for the better either, but I digress.
BTW, the delightful image below right was taken by Henry Alexandersen.
Although I had no idea what was occurring at the time, I somehow - subtly - learned to associate the slippery smoothness of that heavy, smooth PVC with safety and security. How was I to know that
the lingering memories of these early smells helped trigger a compulsion that would last the rest of my life? The heavenly scent of the PVC I used to wear all the time made me feel absolutely wonderful., although of course I had no idea why. Guilt - and shame - was not something whih would arrive until much later. It was not until much later that I finally learnt that the sense of smell (as well as those of sight and touch) was intimately linked to my brain which naturally stored these pleasant memories away for future reference. Please bear with me; the scientific explanation how I developed such a strong fetish for rainwear is somewhat complex. The nose contains a set of olfactory cells or receptors and they are directly connected to the limbic system, which is thought to be responsible for emotion, such as pleasure or happiness – or security. Each smell travels straight to the cortex of the brain where recognition occurs but by the time this happens, the limbic system has already been stimulated by the electrical reactions created by the smell. Therefore, whenever I picked up my raincoat and identified the strong smell of PVC, the scent had already activated this system, thus subtly creating increasingly strong sensations of pleasure and happiness.
Although I love wearing plastic or PVC rainwear of any kind, I adore yellow rainwear more than anything else. Apart from the fetish connotations, it's also - to me, anyway - the only real colour a raincoat should be. Shiny safety yellow. Nobody's going to miss me crossing the road in my gleaming rainwear. It's also why I prefer the classic cotton-backed shiny PVC Rukka, Helly Hansen, Bormax or Viking macs of the era over everything else. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one who feels the same way and it's reflected in the prices being paid for some of these raincoats in online auctions. However, bargains still exist if you put the time and effort in.
At least we can still enjoy these beautiful images and dream.
BTW, that's my (ex) girlfriend, Chel wearing a classic shiny yellow Rukka complete with a belt and hood. I also took this image at Shiny Beach in the Philippines. She had a ball modelling for me, despite the heat of the day!
