Raincoats originated in China. In the Zhou Dynasty, some people used the herb "Li" to make a raincoat to prevent rain, snow, wind, and shade, and this kind of raincoat is often called "Cloth". Around the time of the Spring and Autumn Period, the ancients had invented an oilcloth raincoat. "Zuo Chuan: Twenty-seven Years of Mourning Gong" contains: "Chen Chengzi's clothes make canes". Du pre-note: "system, raincoat". Qing Duan Yu believes that the system is not a straw rain gear, if today's oil cloth clothes. According to research, at that time, people had an understanding of the dry oil plants tung and eon, and the so-called oil cloth was a rainproof cloth made by drying the fabric with tung oil or cui oil. After arriving in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the production of oilcloth raincoats has taken a step further, it can be processed on silk, and it can also be made of silkworm cocoon paper. In the Sui Dynasty, raincoats were made from oilcloth. "Book of Sui" once recorded that Emperor Yang of Sui watched the hunt and encountered rain, "left and right into the oil coat". However, this kind of tarpaulin raincoat is expensive and difficult for ordinary people to obtain, and only the nobles are blessed to enjoy it. The raincoat of the Tang Dynasty was a combination of a lily coat and a hat, and Tang Zhangzhi and the word "Yugezi" said: "Green hat, green lily coat, oblique wind and drizzle do not need to return", which truly describes the situation of working people wearing raincoats to work. Therefore, it is said that "green hats" and "green clothes" are made of plant leaves, and there were raincoats made of silk in the Tang Dynasty. For a long period of time, the coat and hat were still popular raincoats, but with the development of social productive forces, they were no longer thatched, but replaced by brown, and the production became more and more exquisite. In the Song and Yuan dynasties, the cloth was a raincoat for soldiers in the army. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the aristocratic scholars also preferred to wear clothes and hats, such as Jia Baoyu in "Dream of Red Mansions", the "jade needle" draped from jade grass on rainy days, and the "golden rattan hat" made of rattan skin and brushed with tung oil, which aroused the admiration of the girls. As a rainproof clothing, it was used until the emergence of modern new plastic raincoats and gradually disappeared from people's vision. However, in some remote mountainous areas, it is still possible to see lichen made of plant fibers.
In 1747, the French engineer François Freynaud used latex obtained from rubberwood to dip cloth shoes and coats in this latex solution to make it waterproof. In a rubber factory in Scotland, England, there was a worker named Mackindus, who one day in 1823, McKindus accidentally dripped rubber solution onto his clothes while working. When he found out, he quickly wiped it with his hands, but the liquid rubber seemed to have seeped into his clothes, and instead of wiping it off, it was coated into a piece. McIndous was reluctant to throw the garment away, so he still wore it to and from work. Soon after, McIndous discovered that the garment was rubberized with a layer of waterproof glue, which was unsightly but impermeable. He simply rubberized the entire garment, and the result was a garment that could keep out the rain. With this new dress, McIndous no longer has to worry about rain. Word of the novelty soon spread, and when colleagues at the factory found out, they followed Mackindus's lead and made waterproof tape raincoats. Later, the fame of the tape raincoat grew, attracting the attention of the British metallurgist Parks, who also studied this special garment. Parks found that rubber-coated clothing, while impermeable, was hard and brittle, making it neither aesthetically pleasing nor comfortable to wear. Parks decided to make some improvements to the garment. It was not until 1884 that Parkes invented and patented the technology of using carbon disulfide as a solvent to dissolve rubber and make waterproofing products. In order for the invention to be quickly applied to production and commercialization, Parks sold the patent to a man named Charles. Later, raincoats began to be produced in large quantities, and the trade name "Charles Raincoat Company" quickly became popular all over the world. However, people have not forgotten the credit of McIndous, and everyone calls the raincoat "MacIndous". Since then, the word "raincoat" has been called "mackintosh" in English. In the twentieth century, the advent of plastics and various waterproof fabrics made raincoats increasingly rich in styles and colors. After the 60s of the 20th century, raincoats made of plastic film or treated raincloth became widely popular.