New Trends of fashion in the world 2014

Designers are working in a vein of rehabilitation right now, and their interest in the pacamac is just another example of something you thought would never be cool again making the ultimate high-end comeback. It happened for the poloneck, the scrunchie and the Mum jean, now it's the turn of wet-weather gear.

It comes as something of a relief, perhaps, to fashionable types who have determinedly worn damp wool coats since the days of antiquity rather than be seen in anything as practical as splashproof polyester. No longer the jealous sideways looks at the man next to you in a rain retardant North Face jacket with a hood.

"I love an anorak," says Karen Dacre, fashion editor at the Evening Standard. "Mostly because I really enjoy the thrill of ditching an umbrella, bag and whatnot. But next season, with so many luxe interpretations on offer, even the well-heeled may fall for its charms."

In this sense, the anorak is the new pool slide, the new "is it appropriate?" piece to make the leap from streetwear to Parisian salon, and it signifies ever more clearly our divergence from the formal codes of years past. When people go to work in jersey and trainers, when they go to cocktail parties in ripped jeans, why on earth shouldn't they wear the sort of coat that has formerly been reserved for dog-walkers and hikers?


Helmut Lang autumn/winter 1999
Picture credit: Getty
And the Nineties influences are impossible to ignore. The urban appropriation of all this techy outerwear recalls Helmut Lang's improvised sportiness and Prada's utilitarian aesthetic from that decade. It's something that jars, but which ultimately feels innate - nerdy but nice.

"I'm drawn to the nerdiness," says designer Peter Jensen, whose autumn 2008 collection was dedicated to the anorak-wearing heroine of Mike Leigh's film Nuts in May. "It has so many good associations for me. For me, the idea of a girl putting an anorak on over a chic dress is British style at its best."

It's true, this coat feels like a homecoming; this moment in the sun for it is something of a relief. Fashion is no longer embarrassed by function and its ostensible lack of polished aesthetic. The anorak's allure lies in its very utility - that's why it looks so good shrugged on over a slip. It brings all that high-end, editorial wistfulness to a place that we understand as part of our lives, to a grey and rainy day somewhere near you.