Twelve years ago, a group of friends launched a business in the Danish town of Egå to help people stay dry and look good in the rain.

Philip Lotko, Daniel Brix, and Kenneth Davis debuted their outerwear brand Rains with minimalist raincoats aimed at fashion-conscious consumers.

They proved a big hit.

The company later added more products, including winter jackets, puffers and waterproof backpacks.

Fast forward to 2024 and Rains has 29 stand-alone stores across the world, the latest of which opened on Dublin’s Wicklow Street in March.

It’s hard to understand why it took so long for the popular brand to launch in Ireland, considering this country’s annual rainfall is almost twice that of Denmark.

The man who brought the brand to Dublin is Andy Collins, owner of Indigo & Cloth, an independent clothes shop in Temple Bar, and coowner of Note, a trendy wine bar on Fenian Street near Merrion Square.

“It has been super busy since we opened. March was the wettest March on record in Ireland and the brand, being so weatherproof, made it the perfect month to open,” Collins tells Business Plus.

“We are currently overperforming the targets set by Rains HQ. We are going more positively than expected.

“Within our first couple of weeks, we were among Rains’s top three stores across its network. It really proved just how popular the brand is,” he says.

Collins says the shop gets a sales boost when it rains, and another following a heavy downpour as people seek to invest in quality gear to avoid getting drenched again.

“Even on the really sunny days we still have customers coming in for festival season or for our accessories,” he says.

Collins had a pre-existing relationship with the Danish brand, as he has sold their products in Indigo & Cloth for almost a decade.

“When I first got in contact with Rains about opening a dedicated shop, it was super easy. I had stocked them for so long already.

“I posed the question: ‘Why haven’t you thought of opening an own-brand store in Dublin?’

“Rains class their franchises as partnerships. They work with people who are ingrained in the city, who can make it feel like a local store, and that’s been important for me with the staffing and to have a space that feels inherently Irish,” he says.

Collins says the Dublin Rains shop stocks about 80% of the brand’s catalogue, and its ‘instant stock programme’ means items are automatically restocked within two or three days of being sold.

The success of the Rains outlet in Dublin is a vote of confidence for the capital’s high street, which has weathered a difficult storm in recent years, although there are reasons to be positive.

Carhartt Work in Progress, the fashion division of the American workwear brand, is opening its first Irish store at 20 Exchequer Street later this year while Arket, the Swedish brand owned by the H&M Group, is opening its first Irish shop at the junction of Dublin’s Dawson Street and Nassau Street in the coming months.