Product Review: The ARC’TERYX Beta AR

Most guides to waterproof jackets overwhelm you with technical terms like “Gore-Tex™️” or “taped seams” or “breathable” or “hooded”. Miss me with that nerd shit! I’m here to tell you that the most important thing when choosing a raincoat is the COLOR. Why? Because the color of your raincoat will inevitably conjure up one of the following connotations.

Yellow. Paddington bear, in other words British nostalgia. And British nostalgia is always really nostalgia for the British empire. What self-respecting adult watches a film about a cuddly toy anyway?

Red. The killer dwarf at the end of Don’t Look Now. Part of an old + nasty tradition of casting the body-atypical as villains. More importantly a wack ending.

Green. Candice-Marie or Keith from Nuts in May, Mike Leigh’s camping comedy and satire on the myth of the rural idyll. Keith’s cagoule really makes him look like a Keith.

Blue. The unnamed owner of the famous blue raincoat in Leonard Cohen’s best song.

SO. Do you want to look like a closet jingoist? The problematic + divisive end to a 70s horror? A gentle satire of environmentalism (in times like these!!)? Not when you could look like a “thin gypsy thief / with a rose in your teeth.” To cut a long and tenuous story short, buy a blue raincoat like this one from Arc’teryx. Blue raincoats don’t come more famous than this. I bet that’s where Leonard Cohen’s lost love got hers before she went to build her little house in the desert.

BONUS POINTS if yours (like hers) is torn at the shoulder. This might make it less ““waterproof””” BUT it will help you affect an air of nonchalance guaranteed to make you the subject of a roving troubadour’s wistful ballad. And that, I think we can agree, is worth a wet jumper.