Travel Destinations: Umbrella Shops: London

After your visit to Paris,, it is short channel hop to London, where you will want to go to Oxford Street to see James Smith and Sons. As touted in the the Daily Telegraph: the umbrella shop "has remained largely unchanged since it moved to the location in 1857 (the shop was originally located in Foubert Place, off Regent Street, where it opened in 1830)." They sell "every conceivable type of men's and women’s umbrellas and parasols, as well as made-to-measure walking sticks (fitted while you wait)."

The Guardian has also listed Smith's as one of the 10 best shops in West London.

For the umbrella tourist, one blogger has chosen an umbrella theme London Walk that takes one to Smith's (or as the blogger would have it: the Umbrella Shop in Hazelwood House, before heading off to the "balcony of THE NATIONAL GALLERY on TRAFALGAR SQUARE when it starts to drizzle" to see thousands of umbrellas open up.

In addition, our London traveler can also visit "Brigg" (properly Swaine Adeney Brigg on St. James Street, but it doesn't focus exclusively on umbrellas. And at least one blogger, after going by Smith's to go to Brigg, then ended  dashing back to Smith's before closing to get what he really wanted!

Taking James Smith and Sons beyond their mark as a tourist destination, the publishers of Cane News [aside: does the Brolly Blog really cover canes? I think not!] have written about the craftsmanship evident at Smith's, but also about the "beauty inside"--particularly pointing to the "the corkscrew cane, the cane containing four dice, a pipe, two silver plated cups and a glass flask with Maplewood stick--or, the special Toulouse-Lautrec version with two glasses, glass flask and a stick made from laminated tropical hardwoods."

However, if you are an Avengers fan, then the most important thing to know about Smith's is that John Steed's "swordstick featured in the title sequence was made by venerable English umbrella maker James Smith & Sons."

Book Cover: Spring (by David Szalay) [US Divergence]

A new book cover today prompts suggestion that Americans like umbrellas more than the British, at least in the minds of publishers. The book in question is Spring: A Novel   by David Szalay. This book was first published in (no accident) Spring 2011 in the United Kingdom to fairly good reviews--"95 per cent excellence" according  The Independent. Exploring discussion of the book, it is clear that it does, indeed, take place in Spring and the Spring in England is rainy, clearly justifying tying the red umbrella to the cover. However, the original British hardcover had no image on it all, but was full of print, clearly appealing to a different sensibility:  

                                     

The British paperback edition goes away from this enticing text to a vague image, but no umbrella.

What can we make of this? Umbrella lovers appreciate the recognition of the power of the brolly, but does it really sell better in the United States? And how do we figure this out?

Before we leave the topic for today, I also report that Szalay does refer to umbrellas in his text--on at least four different pages if you accept the Amazon search tool. For the romantic entanglements involved in this novel, it is nice that the first reference (on page 66) appears to capture some of his themes:

Outside he puts up the umbrella. They have to squeeze together to get under it. They have not been in such proximity all evening and he smells the faded sense of her perfume - so familiar a smell, lingering in woollens - that she put on in the morning when she went to work. It is only a short walk to her flat. They have made this ingress together many times. They know what to do. He shakes off the umbrella and takes off his shoes.

The rest, I leave to your imagination!