Let Your Style Be Your Umbrella

First on early man’s priority list came food. Then came shelter. Then came good-looking, functional shelter. Then, finally, good-looking, functional, portable shelter.

And that’s about as much thought as most Southern Californians give to their umbrella: Will it keep out the rain without making me look like a dweeb?

But, unlike Freud’s cigar, sometimes an umbrella is a lot more than just an umbrella. Today, the design options range from the simplest of water-resistant canopies to varieties that practically implode on command to traditional, upper-crusty bumbershoots.

Here in the land where it never rains (or so says a cloying pop song), an umbrella is often an afterthought. But, says Lissa De Andrea, it should be looked upon as an accessory.

“An umbrella can be as specific as the person carrying it, really,” says De Andrea, who owns a shop in San Francisco called Adornme. “People are getting tired of the $3 umbrellas and they’re seeing them as another way of expressing themselves.”

The modern umbrella falls within two broad categories: the traditional version that resembles a cane wrapped in fabric and the collapsible model--a “compact” in the trade--that furls up for storage in a purse or a briefcase.

The compact, first marketed about 30 years ago, is still being tweaked, says Sherman Cole, manager of the West Coast office of Gila Products Ltd., an umbrella importer based in Lakewood. The most advanced model opens and closes at the touch of a button. “If you’re getting into a car you can fold it up while you’re sitting in the car, all with one hand,” he explains.

But the collapsible probably owes its popularity more to corporate America than to its design, says Richard Ziskin, president of American Umbrella Co., a New York-based manufacturer and importer. “Companies like to give them away because when they’re open and going down the street they’re like walking billboards.”

The materials used for the canopy (polyester beats nylon) and the shaft (fiberglass outperforms wood and steel) dictate an umbrella’s cost, from $3 for the simplest compact to $50 for a conventional stick.

The world’s best-known purveyor of top-of-the-line sticks is Swaine Adeney Brigg & Sons Ltd. of London. “They’re the Rolls-Royce of umbrellas,” De Andrea says. “They’re awork of art. The handle and shaft are one-piece construction and the canopy is tightly made with Sheffield steel ribs.”

With such add-ons as sterling silver accents, a Brigg’s base price of about $100 can reach $800, she adds.

Other vendors, many of them operating out of Asia, offer more fanciful variations on the stick. Handles may be carved into shapes, like Mary Poppins’ puffin. And a bestseller for De Andrea is the model made by Xonex and other firms in which the black canopy’s underside features such scenes as a sky full of clouds, stained glass domes and even the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They go for $28 to $90.

But, take it from an insider, shop for a new umbrella when it’s sunny out.

“Our business surges when it rains in California,” Ziskin says. “Absolutely surges. We get all sorts of orders by FedEx, next-day air. They want them now.”