CLOTHIERS Ed Des
Roches and Katie
O’Brien had visions of
sugarplums dancing in
their heads when they
dreamed up this holiday
promotion.

The — husband: asd wite
team behind Phim Jothing
company has sought out the
only North American producer
of these mythical delights and
shipped quantities of the tasty
treats to its seven stores,
inckiding the Lower Lonsdale
and Bellevue Avenue locations.

Until Christmas ve or
while quantities last, shoppers
will receive the holida
with a purchase of S35 or
more.

Des Roches offers these
plummy facts about the rasty
yuletide treat:

@ Dictionary definitions of
Sugarplum include: “a small
ball or disk of candy,” a small
sweetmeat” and “a crystallized
fruit, sweet candy or cakes.”
i In ancient Egypt, the earliest
candymakers used honey asa
sweetener and added figs,
dates, nuts and spices.
@ British origins of the sug-
arplum date back to Henry
TV’s wedding feast in 1403
which featured sugarplums,
“sugar made up with roses,
comfitures of fruit and many
spices.” Sugar, which was a rar-
ity in 1650 and a luxury in
1750 became a daily commod-
ity by 1850.
Oi The Night Before Christmas
(the most famous litera + refer-
ence to sugarplins) rite
ten by Clement C. A} ore, an
American scholar born 1779
in New York City wh. ied in
1863. The poem, originally
tied A Visit From Snint
Nichoins, was written as a gift
for his children in 1822 and
published anonymously the
following year.

— Layne Christensen

sonere

FASHION

lt

Sunday. December 13. 1998 -- North Shore News — 15

Musings on foul-weather wear

John Moore
Contributing Writer

AS God said to Noah:
“How’s vour boat coming
along?” Or words to that
effect.

In simpler times. human beings
simph sought shelter trom the rain
and sealed ino wherever chevy were
with a few bevies and a Scrabble game
and waited for into step. Pit was the
“rainy season,” expecially somewhere
like the B.C. coast, this could take a
while, but there weren't any buses to
eatch or places te catch them fo.

The Industrial Revolution floated
the notion that people ought te go to
work every day, regardless of the sea-
son, in order to maintain predictable
levels of manufactured production,
and it focused some of its creative
energies On products thar would
enable them to do so — the umbrel-
la, the raincoat, waterproof footwear
dad public transit

The discovery of India rubber
(caoutchouc) by French explorers in
the 1700s was initially abuse.
Nobody knew what to do wich the
stuff, ft became known as India rub-
ber in 1770) when a Dr. Priestly
demonstrated its uscfilness at cub-
ding out pencil marks. The tropics
rainforests of the New World seemed
like a long way to go for an eraser.
Easier and cheaper to tear up the
paper and start again.

Charles Mackintosh had a better
idea, Early in the 1830s, he devised a
process for impregnating fabric with
India rubber to create waterproof
clothing.

Despite the British climate, his
invention was a limited success. The
major drawback was the notoriously
anti-social odour of the garments
Which came to bear his name.

A contemporary diarist observed:
“Complaints were made that the
Mackintosh is becoming a trouble-
some thing in Town from the difficul-
ty of their being admitted to an
omnibus on account of the offensive
stench which they emit.” The writer
had never been on an omnibus where
dozens of freshly applied perfumes,
colognes and after-shayves compete
with the mineral smell of morning:
edition printers’ ink for the attention
of one’s allergic sensors.

Some inventors names. stick to
things long after the product has
evolved bevond the original concept.

The overly aromatic rubber capes
and overcoats Mackintosh developed
were soon eclipsed, yet “mac” is now
widely used in England to mean any
type of raincoat, though it should
properly refer only to what is now
known as “rain gear” for outside
workers.

Sometimes the inventor, is eclipsed
by the name of the person ‘who com-

NEWS photo Terry Peters

WRITER John Moore dons the finest of toul-weather fashion: Mac and Weilies. Helly Hansen yellow
sticker and made-in-Slovakia genuine rubber boots, courtesy of Mark's Work Wearhouse.

missions the object, in this case, the
Vellington Boot.

The English, and many Canadians
as well, call rubber boots “wellies™ in
memory of the Iron Duke, but the
boot which bears his nickname bears
ao resemblance to the one he com-
missioned from his now forgotten
boormaker during the Napoleonic
Wars.

On campaign, English officers
wore riding boots; stitf, knee high,
spurred and, in the heavy cavalry,
including an armoured flap that
reached halfway up the thigh. Getting
in and out of them required assistance
and after a long dav in the saddle,
what the Duke wanted was out and
into something comfortable.

The problem was that he travelled
with 100,000 or so other men and
horses who could rurn a meadow into
a mud-and-dung bog in minutes. A
gentleman couldn't: swan about in
dancing pumps through this muck, so
the Duke commissioned a “camp
boot” of loose fit reaching no more
than half-way up the caif.

Black leather Engineers boots o7
Biker boots are closer relatives than
the green or black rubber things
which bear the illustrious name,
though their purpose is the same. The
latter are “gumboots,” made from
rubber gum, the professional
footwear of fishermen and sailors, not

soldiers (Canada’s “corvette” crews in
the Second World War called them-
selves The Gumboot Navy) and the
wet wear of farmers, gardeners and
generations of children.

The gumboot is where Charles
Mackintosh and the Iron Duke's
anonymous bootmaker come togeth-
er, with a lice help from) Mr.
Goodyear in the U.S., who developed
the process known as “vulcanizing” in
1839, stabilizing rubber for an almost
limitless scope of applications, and
applied it not to clothes, but to
footwear, the first practical and aes-

thetically acceptable application of

rubber technology.

Goodyear made shoes out of rub-
ber; boots and over-shoes which later
also made the first use of the revolu-
tionary “zip fastener,” then still too
cumbersome to be used in clothing.

When IT was a kid, gumboors
offered the same colour options as the
original Model A Ford: “any colour as
Jong as it was black.”

We folded the tops of our black,
red-soied rubber boots over into
reverse cuffs, a fashion statement that
dates back to the military boots of the
Duke’s wars.

Vellies now come in designer
colours, for women at least. Dudek
Shoes in Park Royal South offers a tall
rubber boat trom Romika that comes
in bright red or yellow, or more

restrained grey and ivory, for $54. A
mid-calf length in blue, black or ivory
runs $49,

Eaton’s also offers Kodiak rubber
boats in red, vellow, green and blue
for $65.

If vowre into retro “basic black,”
Mark’s Work Wearhouse on Marine
Drive in’ North Vancouver (across
from the Avalon Frotel) is where vou
want to be,

You can still get the classi¢ black
gumboot with the red. soles tor
$12.99 and, miracle of miracles,
they're “Made in Canada.”

If Napoleon had gumboots like
these for his Grenadiers at Waterloo,
where mud was a deciding factor in
the battle, they might be called
“Boneys” these days.

At Mark's, the olive green version
favoured by English gardeners and
farmers will run you $24.99. And if
you need a real Mac to go with them,
proper rain-gear jackets from Helly
Hansen run $59.99 for the hip- length
in green or yellow, and $99.99 for the
long yellow — slicker. Charles
Mackintosh would wear them if le
were around,

In the words of the immortal Doc
Watson: “Let it rain, let it pour. Let it
rain a whole lot more, ‘cause Pve got
those Deep River Blues,” ... and my
Mac and Wellies. Yes, Mom, I’m
wearing my rubbers.

Sofa beds to go...

* 9 different styles

* 6” deluxe mattress w/580 coils

* immediate delivery available for
holiday guests.

Cp ofa So Good |

2219 Cambie St. @7th Ave.
879-4878
Park and enter from the lane