Mackintosh (raincoat)
A Mackintosh or, more rarely, Macintosh , abbreviated as Mack or Mac , is a rubberized and therefore waterproof raincoat that is associated with Great Britain .
The terms refer to both the products of protected fashion brand Mackintosh , whose history goes back to 1823 and since 2007 in possession of a Japanese textile group's located, and on the generalized brand names are meant different with the general rubberized raincoats Manufacturer .
Brand history
In 1823, patented the Scottish chemist and inventor Charles Macintosh a waterproof (1766 to 1843) cotton fabric , with whom he in rubber had impregnated waterproof soluble fabric paint and let in Glasgow of tailors and textile manufacturers use it to make rain gear. He called his company Charles Macintosh and Co. Macintosh's compatriot James Syme (1799–1870) had the original idea for the textile dye soluble in rubber a few years earlier. Macintosh bought the patent from Syme and developed the idea of rainwear further.
In 1830 merged the company Macintosh with the company of the English entrepreneur and inventor Thomas Hancock (1786-1865), who as early as 1819 with rubber and rubber had experimented. In 1838 the headquarters of the Charles Macintosh India Rubber Company were relocated to Manchester . Hancock optimized the rubber coating using a vulcanization process for which a patent was pending in 1843 . Initial problems with gumming such as odor intensity, stiffness and poor washability in hot water were thus overcome. The real Mackintosh were completely handcrafted and had glued instead of sewn hems.
The company expanded and soon also supplied official bodies such as the British police and during the two world wars the British Armed Forces with rain gear. Over time, the spelling with an additional "k" became more common, so that the brand name Mackintosh is known worldwide today. The term is also often used in common parlance for all types of raincoats. The Beatles mention a Mac in the song Penny Lane .
In 1929, Dunlop Rubber took over the Mackintosh company, which existed in this form until the late 1950s. One of the company's suppliers, Talworth Ltd., which was founded in England in 1895, manufactured Mackintosh clothing in Manchester until 1963 and then relocated the company headquarters to Scotland. In 1974 Talworth changed its name to Traditional Weatherwear Ltd. , which had the brand name Mackintosh and the patents from the 19th century.
With the spread of inexpensive PVC as a textile, the company fell into a crisis by the 1980s at the latest. In the 1970s, the main business had been rainproof uniforms for British Rail and the Metropolitan Police Service . In the 1990s, the Mackintosh factory in Cumbernauld was threatened with sale .
In 2000, the Scottish Mackintosh employee since 1983, Daniel Dunko, who had been appointed sales director in 1995, took over the company and became managing director . Dunko gave up the company name Traditional Weatherwear and renamed the company Mackintosh Ltd. around. On his initiative, from the mid-1990s onwards, the Mackintosh company supplied other internationally known companies with rubberized cotton fabrics or rainwear, which were then available in the high-priced assortments from, for example, Gucci , Prada , Balenciaga , Dior , Yves Saint Laurent , Hermès , Louis Vuitton or Comme des Garçons were sold. During this period, 65% of the goods produced went to other companies as a supplier , while 35% was used for the company's own Mackintosh brand. Dunko also focused more on women's fashion than before. In the early 2000s, annual sales were approximately £ 5 million.
Mackintosh today
In 2007, Mackintosh Ltd. from the trading company Yagi Tsusho Ltd. from Osaka , which sells the fashion brands Barbour , Moncler and Woolrich, Inc. in Japan . In the early 2010s, there were two Mackintosh production facilities in Cumbernauld and Lancashire , where around 120 employees produced 12,500 handcrafted Mackintoshs annually. In January 2011, an elegant Mackintosh- was boutique in London's district of Mayfair opened. In 2012 a flagship store was opened in Aoyama, Tokyo. In addition to the main line, there is a second line, Mackintosh Philosophy , exclusively for the Japanese market . The most famous model of the Mackintosh coats is the Duncan in the cut of a trench coat . Competitive companies include Burberry , Aquascutum and Pringle of Scotland .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Mac and Vulcan: Gods of the Rain , gq.com, September 25, 2012
- ↑ Daniel Dunko goes from Macs to riches , heraldscotland.com, May 1, 2011
- ↑ Tradition from Scotland - The real Mackintosh is a "cult device" , textilwirtschaft.de, January 25, 2000
- ↑ The rebirth of the Mackintosh fashion label , scotsman.com, February 8, 2011
- ↑ Traditional Weatherwear LTD. , textilwirtschaft.de, January 23, 2001
- ^ Mackintosh , textilwirtschaft.de, February 10, 2011