Umbrellas join purses, shoes as important daily accessories

You’ve got the killer outfit, the perfect shoes, even a chic designer handbag.\nBut when the rain starts to fall, do you reach for a flimsy black umbrella, bought in haste during the last rainstorm? Or, worse, a bulky golf umbrella that came free with your checking account?\nIf so, it’s time to go shopping.\n“Umbrellas are becoming the new accessory,” says stylist Felix Mercado, who serves as a celebrity style expert for Fox News Channel. Mercado says some of his high-profile clients have been calling this month requesting trendy umbrellas. “You’re going to see a lot of the fashionistas playing it up with interesting umbrellas.”\nThe interest in the decidedly utilitarian item is driving manufacturers to come up with new and prettier designs that repel rain but attract compliments.\nShedRain, for example, which produces both high-end and lower-priced umbrellas, is selling a line of luxury umbrellas, designed by the Italian company Ombrelli, that retail for $195 this year. The handle and shaft are made from a single, hand-carved piece of wood, and the canopy is covered with Italian twill polyester in a variety of prints, including plaids, florals and a Tibetan-inspired stripe.\n“If people are paying $195 for an umbrella, they’re seeing it as a fashion accessory,” said Jeff Blauer, ShedRain’s executive vice president of business development.\nSeattle-based Pare Umbrellas offers several lingerie-inspired designs this season, a style that’s become popular on both sides of the Atlantic. “When it is closed, it looks like an old-styled bloomer,” says owner Satoko Kobayashi of the company’s frilly “Mary Poppins” model.\nFrench lingerie designer Chantal Thomass offers seven new umbrella designs adorned with a similarly sexy mix of lace, bows and Swarovski crystals.\nMercado recently ordered Thomass’s “Pom-Pom” model for a client. “Women are saying, ‘I’m going to have fun with this,’” he says. “It’s like an extension of your personality.”\nHigh-fashion umbrellas are being marketed to men as well.\n“It’s an accessory as important as your briefcase,” says David Kahng, CEO of Davek, which sells men’s umbrellas for $95 at stores such as Neiman-Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Kahng, a mechanical engineer, designed his umbrellas with a solid steel shaft and a flexible, carbon polymer frame. The company offers a lifetime guarantee against breakage.\nBut Kahng says fashion is also a priority for customers, and he now sells black umbrellas with one contrasting panel, either pale blue or wasabi green.\n“Until now, with a handbag or shoes or sunglasses, there was that expectation. But until recently umbrellas didn’t have that fashion clout,” he says.\nSome people are also using umbrellas for sun protection.\n“You don’t see so many people walking around with umbrellas in the sun yet, but you see more than you did a few years ago,” said Ann Headley, director of rain product development at Totes. “You do see them in Manhattan in the heat of the summer.”\nTotes has created light-colored umbrellas with specially treated fabric offering a sun protection factor of 50. “A black umbrella does about the same thing,” says Headley. “But in the sun in the summer, you don’t want a black umbrella.”