Sometimes a raincoat is more than protection from the weather. The Raincoat WM is one of those rare objects: a wearable story, where contemporary design meets centuries-old imagination. It brings the world beyond museum walls into motion – through the city, through the rain, through everyday moments that suddenly carry meaning.
The pattern on this raincoat is inspired by the story of Hanuman, the white monkey of Hindu mythology. Hanuman represents courage, strength, and devotion – a figure who moves across boundaries and connects worlds. His story has been told for generations, reimagined across South and Southeast Asian visual traditions, where myth and meaning are carried through image, performance, and craft.
On this raincoat, that story is reinterpreted in a contemporary form. Not as a static museum object, but as a moving image in daily life. The design references the aesthetics of wayang shadow puppetry, a storytelling tradition in which light, shadow, and carved figures bring epic narratives to life. The original inspiration, a finely crafted wayang puppet, is part of the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam collection—where objects are not only preserved, but understood as living carriers of stories, skills, and identities.
Between rain and ritual
The Raincoat WM exists in the space between the everyday and the symbolic. Rain is no longer just something to endure; it becomes an invitation to connect—with the city, with the elements, and with a narrative that stretches across time and geography.
Like many objects in the Wereldmuseum collection, this raincoat encourages a different way of seeing. Not only what something is, but what it carries: the hands that shaped it, the traditions that formed it, and the meanings that continue to evolve as it moves through the present.
Designed as wearable heritage
The Raincoat WM is part of a limited series in which fashion and heritage meet. The design is contemporary and functional, yet grounded in a deeper cultural context. It reflects the idea that stories do not remain still in display cases – they travel, transform, and reappear in new forms.
Wearing this raincoat means carrying more than protection against the rain. It means carrying a fragment of an ancient narrative – once performed in carved wood and shadow, now translated into textile, movement, and urban life.
A museum that moves with you
The Wereldmuseum tells stories of the world: of celebration and loss, of making and meaning, of connection across cultures and time. The Raincoat WM aligns with this perspective – that culture is not only something to observe, but something to live with.
In that sense, this raincoat is not the conclusion of a design process, but the beginning of an encounter. Between you and a story older than the rain, yet as changeable as the skies above it.
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