The understated Scandi style quietly emanating from this compact daypack is a thing to behold. It's a deliciously minimalist design – with simple flap and clip closure – but look a bit closer and there are quite a lot of handy little features lurking in there too. The main compartment includes a zip pocket and laptop sleeve, and there's also a quick-access phone pocket hidden in the back panel. Even that statement top flap actually conceals magnetic snap fastenings to complement the clip on the outside. The best thing about it, though, is the signature RAINS polyurethane-coated fabric. It's the same stuff they use on their classic rubberised raincoats – waterproof, windproof, and incredibly durable.
There can’t be many outdoor brands gracing the runways at Paris Fashion Week, but RAINS is one of them. Fear not though – stylish as they are, the unisex jackets and bags from this up-and-coming Danish company are firmly rooted in heavy weather and Scandi heritage.
The Danes know a thing or two about rainwear, after all. Copenhagen gets an average of 170 rainy days a year, and since time immemorial, the classic rubberised cotton slicker has been the nation’s wet-weather armour of choice. When RAINS co-founders Philip Lotko and Daniel Brix Hesselager met at one of Denmark's largest textile and design schools, they wanted to take this Viking icon and turn it into something more contemporary. They started out in 2012 with a rain poncho, and quickly expanded into a range of raincoats and water-resistant bags – all in their signature ‘neo-Scandinavian’ style.
They’re textile designers at heart, and that’s where RAINS really shows its class. The specially developed matte-finish PU fabrics are lightweight and waterproof, with ultrasonically welded seams and ventilation carefully designed in.
Fashionable this stuff might be, but fast fashion it certainly isn’t. RAINS’s commitment to ethical and sustainable working stretches from the conditions in their partner factories to their transport logistics and even the lighting in their offices and shops. And at the heart of that, of course, are products that are built to last. If you do eventually manage to wear them out, RAINS will even trade you store credit when you return them for recycling.
