Weather-proofing the planet

Jane Tynan
07.03.2026

Prepping

Preparing for a trip to Iraq, war reporter Kenneth Rosen was surprised to discover his flak jacket was not bulletproof. When the protective vest arrived in the post his army veteran friend said something alarming: “Nothing’s bulletproof. The thing’s only bullet resistant.”1 Angel Armour, a US company supplying PPE to law enforcement and first responders, list on their website varying grades of body protection. But they come with a warning: “no body armour product on the market can truly be considered bulletproof.” 2 Bombs and bullets are not the only external forces we defend ourselves against; we also prep for inclement weather. Over recent decades, high-performance weather-proof outerwear has boosted sales of outdoor goods, now a multi-billion-euro industry with projected growth into the future. 3
In this short article, I explore weather-proofing as symptomatic of social relations in the Anthropocene. My current research project Synthetic Adventures: (un)sustainability and (dis)comfort in the design, making and use of outdoor clothing examines the relationship between climate and clothing since the synthetics boom and considers whether embodiment and feeling foster high-carbon sartorial habits. The early meaning of proof, “an act of proving” describes actions to test or trial the strength of something, eventually extended from “proof of” to “proof against.” 4 In medieval and early modern England, we see ‘proof of’ (evidence) coalesce with ‘proof against’ (protection) in a test armourers used to display their craft. They shot arrows and crossbow bolts to establish the impenetrable quality of their equipment leaving ‘proof’ marks on display with gradations such as ‘full-proof’ and ‘half proof.’5
Originally denoting technologies to improve the security of military bodies, proofing has come to mean a procedure to keep bodies from harm in various settings. To ‘proof’ is to reinforce. From buildings and roads to boats, water-proofing became commonplace with the introduction of scientific processes to repel water, leading to an uptick in mentions of waterproof dyes, varnishes, clothing and cosmetics.6 But to call an object‘a waterproof’ could only mean a coat engineered to resist oncoming rain. Modern waterproof coats started with the rubber macintosh but the invention of a range of novel textiles ushered in a range of exciting new weather-resistant apparel products.

Comfort

Industrially produced water-repellent clothes ‘proof’ the body against atmospheric conditions but their cultural significance is perhaps best explained through conceptions of ‘comfort,’ a word conspicuously over-used in outdoor gear promotions. For Tomas Maldonaldo, “comfort is a modern idea” to describe the increased prevalence of spaces of sanctuary, privacy and containment.7 Formerly, a privilege of the few, the idea of comfort spread alongside nineteenth century social and technological progress.8 More people felt entitled to, and came to expect, a high level of comfort. But, as Daniel Barber argues in relation to the spread of mechanical air conditioning, the premium placed on this anthropocentric conception of comfort deepened fossil fuel dependency.9 In the pursuit of human comfort, design has colluded with extractive capitalism and damaging patterns of energy use causing climatic disruption.10 The industrial production of synthetic textile materials, the basis for advancements in water-repellence, contributed to this escalation in dependence on fossil fuels between 1945-2015, a period John McNeil and Peter Engelke call the ‘Great Acceleration.’11

Figure 1. Josje Leger and Marijke Kooger show the new Beat-Mode “Bewogen Mode” made of plastic. Photograph by Jack de Nijs, Nationaal Archief, used under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Now, synthetic fibres are symptomatic of the apparel industry’s entanglement with the fossil fuel industry and ensuing complex environmental risks.12 Heavily reliant on petroleum-derived textiles for water-resistance, fabrics used in the design of outdoor gear—including polyester, nylon, Teflon and Gore-Tex—gave consumers lighter, cheaper, and more colourful garments. By now, we know the environmental risks of large-scale engineering of synthetics, but the accepted narrative foregrounds the human drive to build better, smarter, lighter, stronger, more breathable, and ever-more durable outdoor clothing. Lack of regulation reflects industry priories but only toxic compounds such as PFAS, or ‘forever chemicals,’ have come under serious scrutiny which has prompted EU plans to phase it out.

Protection

There is nothing new in the impulse to water-proof garments for adverse weather conditions. In the centuries before synthetics arrived, the application of rubber to raw fabric or treatments, such as oil, plant and animal-based solutions, were commonplace. Special weaves, felting and boiling were also effective; the heavy and tight weaving process for wool frieze, for instance, provided warmth but also absorbed moisture to leave the body underneath relatively dry. The synthetics boom left older weather-resistant clothing practices behind. Design entered the realm of science with advances in synthetic polymers and water-repellent coatings, scaling up the industry of high-performance hydrophobic textiles.

A disruptive technology in the history of climate-mediating clothing, polymer research and development raised expectations of weather-proof garments. Now, buzzwords like performance and durability communicate complex processes of coating water-resistant synthetic weaves with water-proof membranes. Like the medieval armourer, outdoor brands codify gradations in the form of ‘waterproof ratings’—standardised descriptions of how well a fabric can resist water penetration. Manufacturers also test and trail raincoats, including Gore Intl, whose product developers place Gore-tex prototypes in a ‘storm chamber’ to test their resilience to wet weather. Headlines such as “Bye Bye Brolly: how to stay dry forever” or “The Science of Staying Dry” reflect the willingness of news media to manifest the industry testing apparatus.13 The industry testing regime draws lifestyle writers into the prevailing narrative of weather anxiety and body discomfort: “9 best women’s waterproof jackets to weather any storm: tried and tested.” 14 In outdoor magazines, headlines frame outdoor experience as a struggle between everyday weather and synthetic raingear: “We pitted the best waterproof jackets against the weather.”15 Science-adjacent discourse from the outdoor industry, as Vladimir Jankovic suggests, might win consumer trust but the rush to continually engineer garment performance conjures an image of weather as something that can be tamed, transcended, or nullified. 16 On Nike’s website “The Best Rain Gear to Conquer Wet Weather” captures such wishful thinking, as if a raincoat is not just a raincoat but a triumph of scientific rationality over atmospheric conditions.17 Moreover, parallels between this language of battle and conquest and the roots of polymer material developments in military research are compelling.

The waterproofing innovations outdoor brands benefit from were revitalised following the Second World War when chemical companies oversaw the large-scale transfer of polymer technology from military use to consumer markets. 18 The US-based Du Pont, for example, had been a major manufacturer of explosives but redirected their synthetic materials to the consumer market, one innovation being a soft stretchy version of nylon to make hosiery. 1 But more significant to postwar comfort was perhaps a strong water-resistant nylon material, first used for wartime military parachutes, that reached consumers in the form of the workaday plastic-coated nylon raincoat. Synthetic waterproofing was the technology we did not know we needed.

Crisis

It has been suggested that the climate crisis will be felt as a series of small crises until we reach the point of no return. Current crises such as the rise of the far right, white supremacy, election interference, and conspiracy theories, to name but a few, coalesce around accumulation and climate change denial. But doubling down on old ways of being will not offer refuge from the consequences of climate change: natural disasters, weather extremes, water insecurity, population displacement and conflict. Military-grade protective materials and the comfort of shell jackets fill the void, but only temporarily. British brand Vollebok position themselves as “survival clothing of the future” selling eco-friendly adventure wear such as the ‘Deep-Sleep Cocoon,’ a micro-habitat to safeguard the wearer from external disturbances, or the NASA-inspired ‘Electromagnetic Shielding Bomber.’ 20 Their adventure-driven but paradoxically risk-averse narrative reflects the paranoid style so prevalent in this part of the apparel industry. Discourses of comfort are enlivened by designs that anticipate the atmospheric effects of eco-system collapse, as if the body will be the last frontier in a bleak future hellscape. Interviews with founders are peppered with talk of extreme weather events, an overheated planet, the utopian merging of clothing and technology, and the prospect of space travel.21 Technical gear might fulfil fantasies of the technologically enhanced post-human body, but reaching for pre-given capitalist growth models and tech solutions is no salve for weather uncertainty. By redrawing the contours of the human body as frontier, the hyperbolic language of prepping for weather revitalises human exceptionalism with paranoid visions of life on earth. Consumer culture is getting darker.

Figure 2. Three women in raincoats, rain hats and umbrellas. Photography by Gösta Glase, image: Wikimedia Commons, used under the Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Waterproofing technologies are impressive, but the ecological consequences of engineering textile materials go beyond the idle consumption of a raincoat. It reaches into the ethics of everyday life. The proofing trend is perhaps no different from the expansion of automobile use since the mid-twentieth century, which also leaned heavily on the cultural desire for security and comfort. As Tony Fry warns, we must be attentive to the design consequences of the objects we create, given their capacity to shape our relationship with climate.22 Nothing is truly waterproof or bulletproof but that embattled feeling sells products, a business-as-usual response to climate change that yearns for the ultimate containment of the self. Proofing is an apt metaphor for defended, self-protective, all-too-human responses to a changing environment, responses that normalise flak jackets and military-grade coats to police our corporeal boundaries. As my research on weather-proof apparel develops, I will delve deeper into socio-technical imaginaries driving these high-carbon modes of living and embodiment. The micro-practice of proofing is a large part of that story.


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Jane Tynan, is Assistant Professor of Design History and Theory in the Faculty of Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her NWO-funded 4-year project explores the relationship between climate and clothing focusing on high-performance technical clothing design at a time of growing weather uncertainty.
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This article was first published in printed issue of Platform Pudding #1, centered on the theme of proof and published in March 2026.

Notes

1. Kenneth R. Rosen, Bulletproof Vest (Bloomsbury) 2020.
2. “What is a Bulletproof Vest,” Angel Armour, accessed 31 January 2026:
3. US spending on outdoor goods reached over 862 billion dollars in 2021. Europeans spent 6.1 billion euro in 2022, with 2.8 billion on apparel alone. Source: Outdoor Industry Association, 2022; European Outdoor Group, 2023.
4. Oxford English Dictionary, “proof (adj. & n.),” etymology, meanings and use. September 2025; “proof (n.)” Etymonline: Online Etymology Dictionary.
5. Gary Watt Dress, Law and Naked Truth (Bloomsbury, 2015) 58-59.
6. Oxford English Dictionary, “waterproof (n.),” etymology, meanings and use. September 2025.
7. Tomas Maldonado and John Cullers, “The Idea of Comfort,” Design Issues, 8, 1 (1991): 35-43.
8. John E. Crowley The Invention of Comfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America (John Hopkings University Pess, 2001).
9. Daniel Barber Modern Architecture and Climate. (Princeton University Press, 2020) 16, 267.
10. Andreas Malm Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (Verso 2016) 393
11. John R. McNeil and Peter Engelke, The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945 (Harvard University Press, 2014).
12. Andrew Brooks, Kate Fletcher et al. “Fashion, Sustainability, and the Anthropocene,” Utopian Studies, 28, 3 (2017): 482–504.
13. Mark Miodownik, “Bye Bye Brolly: how to stay dry forever,” The Guardian, 5 January 2014; “The Science of Staying Dry,” Valley Peak, accessed 31 January 2026:
14. Clare O’Reilly, “9 best women’s waterproof jackets to weather any storm: tried and tested,” The Independent. 5 January 2026.
15. “We pitted the best waterproof jackets against the weather.” Great Outdoors,accessed 31 January 2026:
16. Vladimir Jankovic, “The End of Weather: outdoor garment industry and the quest for absolute comfort,” in Weather, Local Knowledge and Everyday Life, in Vladimir Jankovic and Christina Barboza (eds.) Weather, Local Knowledge and Everyday Life: Issues in Integrated Climate Studies (MAST, 2009) 172-180.
17. “The Best Rain Gear to Conquer Wet Weather” NIKE website, accessed 31 January 2026:
18. Rachel Gross, “From Buckskin to Gore-Tex: Consumption as a Path to Mastery in Twentieth-Century American Wilderness Recreation,” Enterprise & Society, 19, 4 (2018): 826-835; Rachel Gross, Shopping All The Way to the Woods: how the outdoor industry sold nature to America (Yale University Press, 2024); Paul Roshan, High Performance Technical Textiles (London: John Wiley, 2019).
19. David A. Hounshell, and John Kenly Smith, Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R&D (Cambridge University Press, 1988); Regina Blaszczyk, ‘Styling Synthetics: DuPont’s Marketing of Fabrics and Fashions in Postwar America.’ The Business History Review, 80, 3 (2006): 485-528.
20. “vollebak ‘deep sleep cocoon' is built for the first expedition to mars,” Design Boom, accessed 31 January 2026:
21. Tom Vanderbilt, “What the World Needs Right Now is Clothing made for Mars,” Outside, 28 June 2022:
22. Vollebok home page, accessed 31 January 2026:
23. Tony Fry, Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice (Bloomsbury, 2018)