“NEVER HOLD THE UMBRELLA AGAIN WHEN WEARING THE PROTECTIVE RAIN HAT.”
June 7, 2015 7:14 AM   Subscribe

 
I suspect my next post will be to the Veg-O-Matic site.
posted by HuronBob at 7:18 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


That thunderstorm audio is comforting. Put that on the speakers, get yourself a cup of hot chocolate, then stare into a fireplace fire.
posted by mono blanco at 7:21 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


I wear old-fashioned rain bonnets a lot and my mother makes fun of me (although the people on the Metro clearly respect me a lot for my choices as they opt to give me an entire seat to myself) but they work really well! This looks sillier, will mess up your hair more, and would be really hard to carry.

I 100% am not kidding when I urge you all to buy old school rain bonnets -- there is a reason old people wear them! It is because they are experienced enough to be smart about their wet weather haberdashery. You can carry a rain bonnet around all the time (they're small and light and scrunch up to fit easily into a pocket), they are super cheap, and I believe they will come back into style and then I will laugh at my mother and say "I told you so" and then scamper off into the world, rain bonnet tied firmly under my chin.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:21 AM on June 7, 2015 [40 favorites]


Flawless Victory!
posted by Fizz at 7:22 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


needs more Devo...
posted by ouke at 7:29 AM on June 7, 2015 [16 favorites]


The pictures page is soooooooo creepy but also a little suspicious. Why is there not a single shot of an actual person wearing one, just lots of mannikin heads in different locations? Not even one selfie, assuming the inventor couldn't get another person to wear one? Weird hangup about photographing people? Bizarre aesthetic choice? Fetish? All three? Or is this someone's faux bad taste art project?

(Man, the internet has even ruined crazy people and their bizarre choices for me. Used to be such a pure thing...)
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 7:29 AM on June 7, 2015 [19 favorites]


I can't decide if "head hubcap" or "head condom" is the look they're going for. And so far as I can tell none of the pages tells you how much the things cost. But still...if I was looking for a way to keep my extensive collection of mannequin heads dry in a rainstorm, I'd be pretty tempted.
posted by yoink at 7:34 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


Since the site doesn't say...

They're $25 apiece, plus 10% sales tax and $14 shipping.
posted by ardgedee at 7:35 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


The pictures page is soooooooo creepy but also a little suspicious.

Has anyone approached Harvey Weinstein with a Mannequin reboot script?
posted by Fizz at 7:36 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


It doesn't come in that old-fashioned raincoat yellow? What the hell?
posted by thelonius at 7:43 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


WEB SAFE COLOURS NEVER DITHER AGAIN LET'S STEAL IDEAS FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH AND REPACKAGE THEM FOR A HIP AUDIENCE IS OUR RETRO PRESENTATION TOO OBVIOUS QUESTION MARK WE'LL NEVER TELL FULL STOP.
posted by clvrmnky at 7:43 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


The reason it's all mannequins wearing these things in the pictures is that no actual human will wear one.
posted by pjern at 7:47 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


PLEASE DO NOT WEAR THE PROTECTIVE RAIN HAT IN HAIL STORMS.
IT IS NOT HARD AND WILL NOT PROTECT YOUR HEAD.
posted by NoraReed at 7:49 AM on June 7, 2015 [12 favorites]


That photo page is kind of discouraging for people actively attempting art. Unless it is art, then good job.
posted by cmoj at 7:50 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Well, since it's not axe-proof, not even hard, I'm going to skip it next time I consider taking over Cathay with my horde. FAREWELL.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:50 AM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


STEAL IDEAS FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Sou'westers--even oddly shaped ones--aren't exactly a secret idea known only to the "Global South."
posted by yoink at 7:52 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


either this is art because it is meant to be art or it isn't and it is found art and i will not be convinced otherwise
posted by NoraReed at 7:54 AM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


I 100% am not kidding when I urge you all to buy old school rain bonnets

What... and have your mom make fun of me too? Fat chance.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:57 AM on June 7, 2015 [14 favorites]


Am I the only one for whom the hat itself holds a strange appeal?
posted by not that girl at 7:58 AM on June 7, 2015 [9 favorites]


Are you Devo?
posted by bonehead at 8:05 AM on June 7, 2015 [5 favorites]


I can't decide if they took their inspiration from old hubcaps or bad Samurai movies.
posted by easily confused at 8:08 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


From Blade Runner.
posted by srboisvert at 8:13 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


So, we all agree that these would be really great gardening hats, right?
posted by oddman at 8:16 AM on June 7, 2015


One of them has a really huge bow and arrow
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:17 AM on June 7, 2015


Can we please have a meetup where we all wear these

"We're from the INTERNET!"
posted by prize bull octorok at 8:18 AM on June 7, 2015 [28 favorites]


I wear old-fashioned rain bonnets a lot and my mother makes fun of me

My grandma wears those and they've long been the subject of much family snickering. I'm sure they're plenty practical for keeping your hair (but nothing else on your person) dry, but my god they look dumb. And that's ok! But so dumb.

Anyway, back when I got my dog my mom would send me links to ebay sales for various dog accouterments, most of them kind of silly. One of them was for a little doggy rain jacket. The ebay link is long gone at this point, but the dog they had modeling one of the color varieties looked very much like this. The main dog model was a beagle, so you wouldn't really notice this little lady unless you were specifically looking at that one color. And that dog looked exactly like my grandma when she wears her rain bonnets. Like exactly. It was uncanny. I wish I had saved the exact dog picture because this one, while still adorable and pretty close, is not quite right.
posted by phunniemee at 8:19 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wear old-fashioned rain bonnets a lot

If your hair is longer than the bonnet is, and if you would rather drown in the rainstorm than put your hair under your collar, what do you do? Are they big enough for completely enormous buns? My head is already too big to fit in any hat I have ever tried on.
posted by jeather at 8:23 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


DO NOT TAUNT PROTECTIVE RAIN HAT
posted by bakerina at 8:23 AM on June 7, 2015 [22 favorites]


big enough for completely enormous buns?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:25 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


The redundancy of "water aqueduct" is somehow making me giggle more than the terrifying photos.
posted by yellowbinder at 8:28 AM on June 7, 2015


I want to get one because it looks like something out of Blade Runner. However there's a reason why they're only showing mannequin heads wearing it: The hat is less wide than the shoulders so in a rain situation your whole body will still get wet. I carry wide umbrellas so my head, my body, and my backpack will stay dry. These, like the rain bonnets mentioned above, will only keep my head dry and nothing else.
posted by I-baLL at 8:43 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


I mean, if we were in the global south, surely we would also have, for example, a straw cape or a plastic poncho to shed the rest of the rain.

These really suggest sixties poptimism future more than anything else to me, and as such seem very San Francisco Of The Past. I think sixties poptimism future was very much "culturally appropriative" but not coming from the same place as cultural appropriation today - ie, when you read Samuel Delany's "Time Considered As A Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" or similar contemporary work and encounter fashion trends that attempt to reflect a mixture of Earth cultures ("thanks to the neural network, the Mumbai fashion for nose rings with plastic ornaments had gone global, enriching fifteen year old Sushima Patel who had started the trend") it's actually an attempt to illustrate a post-colonial utopia where everyone everywhere are equal participants in a kind of utopian capitalism/post-scarcity society. I'm not saying that's a particularly helpful political idea to advance, but it is very different from the contemporary "well, if I can buy it I should be able to use it because it looks cool, it doesn't matter if there's this story of inequality and violence attached" thing.
posted by Frowner at 8:57 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


Are they big enough for completely enormous buns?

They are! They're really big and will cover a lot of your hair and are so light they don't squash it down at all. They also come in packs of like ten so you can keep one in your purse and another in the pocket of your raincoat and one in your desk at work and a few by the door at home so you are never without a rain bonnet when you need one. They are hands free and keep your hair dry and they are so neat looking. Give them a try!
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:04 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Truthfully, the first time I saw them I was "Hmmmm, Star Wars hats."
posted by Samizdata at 9:15 AM on June 7, 2015


Good job, clever inventor.
posted by ctmf at 9:27 AM on June 7, 2015


This is actually Frog Fractions 2.
posted by matrixclown at 9:27 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


The must have fashion accessory for 1975*!
* for mannequins
posted by cosmic.osmo at 9:30 AM on June 7, 2015


Asian conical hats are just a variation on a global universal design. I've seen a 16th Dutch painting of harvesters in which they were wearing conical straw hats.
posted by jb at 9:38 AM on June 7, 2015


Well, it's at least not something anyone is going to "borrow" on a rainy day at the office.

Doug

Doug I know that's my protective rain hat give it back.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 10:13 AM on June 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


I think Mrs. Pterodactyl is in the pockets of Big Rain Bonnet.
posted by cooker girl at 11:04 AM on June 7, 2015 [18 favorites]


Element styling in the code. I call shenanigans.
posted by humboldt32 at 11:22 AM on June 7, 2015


Also, relevant?
posted by humboldt32 at 11:23 AM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is the latest thing in Thunderbirds puppet fashion.
posted by jabah at 11:26 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Seems legit, non-ironic-art-project, it's patented.
posted by Miko at 11:30 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


I just saw that it uses paypal for the transaction. Is this part of their nefarious plan?
posted by njohnson23 at 11:31 AM on June 7, 2015


Omg we totally had those lampshades in our kitchen when I was growing up... In San Francisco.... In the seventies... and all the spares were stolen by a pack of Devo-loving RISD student mannequins.

Wow that is the biggest coincidence ever.
posted by amy27 at 11:32 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


The directions in the package simply say APPLY DIRECTLY TO HEAD.
posted by dr_dank at 11:34 AM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


You can still get an old-fashioned Umbrella Hat on Ebay for like $4, I see.

And of course you're going to need a pair of these.
posted by Fnarf at 11:45 AM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


So um, is this another product of The Jejune Institute?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:19 PM on June 7, 2015


Yes, yoink so'westers are a thing.

This particular design is not exactly a so'wester, which were designed to be worn in driving rains so they have a deeper back part.

This design clearly borrows from SE Asian conical hats, with the fabric part that looks like it could be tied on.

posted by clvrmnky at 12:24 PM on June 7, 2015


DON'TWALKDON'TWALKDON'TWALKDON'TWALK


CROSS NOW CROSS NOW CROSS NOW
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:33 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


I am sorely tempted here. This would go well hanging next to my fishing hat with the 11" brim all around, and my non-ironic, non-culturally-appropriated 30" conical rain shield hat. It IS monsoon season, you know.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 1:07 PM on June 7, 2015


Q: "Are you Devo?"

A: We are Not Men!
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:11 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


I had a foldable Outdoor Research (OR) rain hat when I lived in Oregon, that I did not take to France with me. Biggest mistake I ever made. I miss that thing so much.

We get a lot of wind 'round the Seine here, so umbrellas are more or less pointless, much as in PacNW varieties of rain. Can't find rain hats. Ended up getting a hooded rain jacket. Now there's a simple solution. Face gets a bit wet, but nothing else does.

Still miss that darned wide-brimmed goretex OR hat with adjustable chin strap. Damn thing was perfect.
posted by fraula at 2:21 PM on June 7, 2015


rain bonnets...give me an entire seat to myself

So, womanspreading?
posted by Confess, Fletch at 2:29 PM on June 7, 2015


Just imagine, one night, there comes a tap-tap-tap on the window.

You open a curtain to see a floating mannequin head with a rain hat. On either side of the floating rain-hat head are two more empty-eyed rain-hat heads.

The one in the center is similarly empty-eyed, but you notice that, as the head nods slowly so that the hat hits the window, once, twice, three times, there the head has a strange smile. A smirk, really.

Stop imagining now. You don't want to know what comes next.
posted by angrycat at 2:55 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Wonder if they will replace umbrella hats in Hong Kong. What would the advantage be, I wonder?
posted by frumiousb at 3:53 PM on June 7, 2015


Am I the only one who wants to see these hatted heads sent around the world and photographed in incongruous settings?
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:22 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'd settle for them photoshopped onto a nice transparent background, then we could make our own
posted by NoraReed at 4:41 PM on June 7, 2015


That site - it's like the Timecube of raingear.

Also - my fucking eyes!!!
posted by kcds at 5:29 PM on June 7, 2015


Google Streetview has that address between a Tattoo Parlor and Strip joint.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 5:47 PM on June 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


What do you think rapture is? Answer: Ones who believe shall not get wet and will have everlasting life. RAIN HAT is believed to allow humans to stay physically dry forever. US PATENT # 5,989,178. The most imporatnt invention in human history. SEE OUR TESTIMONIALS HERE! Alex Chiu knows what causes you to get wet and hereby discovered a great solution to stop you from dripping. See how to make the RAIN HAT yourself. Or join our discussion forum.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 5:54 PM on June 7, 2015


I had a foldable Outdoor Research (OR) rain hat

O ya. THese were de rigeur during the 90s when I worked in outdoor education, part of the unform, along with a waist pack and a Nalgene bottle with a MEAN PEOPLE SUCK sticker on it.
posted by Miko at 7:17 PM on June 7, 2015


So, digging around a bit, I found an earlier 1974 patent also relating to a method of keeping rain off your head, in this case, specifically, if you happen to have a 1970's afro. The earlier patent is ascribed to a guy from San Francisco who just so happens to have the same name as the SF-based Rain Hat patent holder we are currently all having a fine time pointing and laughing at. Googling the rather unique nym on the Rain Hat contact page shows that this may very well be the same guy.

I think it might be fair to say that certain aspects of this thread are highly problematic.
posted by motty at 8:46 PM on June 7, 2015


My head is already too big to fit in any hat I have ever tried on.

Now I feel sad.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 10:25 PM on June 7, 2015


It reminds me of this hat, which was ubiquitous on the local minority ethnic group in the touristy areas of Sanya, Hainan, China. Most of the ladies wearing them also had a cloth protecting their necks from the sun, but it was more closely wrapped.

I tried to find a better picture, but I am bad a googling in Chinese.
posted by MsDaniB at 12:13 AM on June 8, 2015


ARE WE NOT MEN?
WE ARE RAIN HAT.
posted by Theta States at 8:10 AM on June 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think it might be fair to say that certain aspects of this thread are highly problematic.

Feel free to articulate some of them instead of just throwing out a vague "you are bad and should feel bad" implication.
posted by Lexica at 9:56 AM on June 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


That's a real stretch, Motty. This is not a recognizably racially identified garment based on the site and the research you did isn't a reasonable expectation for everybody coming to the site cold. Nor would it change the fact that the site is bonkers in execution.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 10:16 AM on June 8, 2015


> So, digging around a bit, I found an earlier 1974 patent also relating to a method of keeping rain off your head, in this case, specifically, if you happen to have a 1970's afro

Those illustrations!
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:37 AM on June 11, 2015


Those illustrations!

It looks like Hank Hill in Toad cosplay.
posted by phunniemee at 7:26 AM on June 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Miko: "it's patented."

The US patent office shows the patent as expired for nonpayment of maintenance fees (you can look it up here), so the hat is now in the public domain. NEW METAFILTER FUNDRAISING IDEA
posted by exogenous at 9:43 AM on June 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


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