Alexander McQueen Incorporating Philip Treacy's Umbrella Headwear

Women's Wear Daily waxes eloquent about Alexander McQueen's Fall 2009 Ready to Wear show: "His collections manifest the wild wanderings of his imagination and emotional state into high theater in which his sartorial wizardry always equals the fantastical visions of his psyche." For Brolly Blog, the important piece of the collection is that McQueen was finishing off looks with Philip Treacy’s spectacular hats--"lamp shade, umbrella or deli plastic bag."

According to the New York Times: "With a runway of broken mirrors surrounding a garbage heap made of props from his own past collections, Mr. McQueen created a stage to symbolize the sudden crash of luxury exuberance. The clothes he sent out were a parody of couture designs of the last century, spoofing Dior’s New Look and Givenchy’s little black Audrey Hepburn dresses, as well as their reinventions by new designers at those companies in the last decade — himself included. It was a bit of a Marie Antoinette riot, poking fun at all the queens of French fashion."

"All the models wore hats by the milliner Philip Treacy that were made of trash-can liners and aluminum cans, or recycled household objects." That includes this double-umbrella hat.

Umbrella as Metaphor: Are These Brolly Blog Appropriate?

Since starting this venture down umbrella lane, the big issue has always been what to do with the word "umbrella". As a metaphor ("umbrella organization") and my basic response is to leave it alone. However, today I have come across two graphic extensions and have decided that some metaphorical umbrellas must get their time in the sun, too.

I am not sure whether this will be a repeated theme or not, but in this case, the word "umbrella" is only a feature of headline to Laura Tutor's story in the Anniston Star--"Widening history's umbrella includes women, famous and ordinary"--and of the accompanying graphic. It is intended, I gather to reflect the growth of interest and promotion of women's history. The article, perhaps stimulated by Women's History Month, tells about the National Women's History Project and the "concerted effort to integrate the story of women into the story of the world" over the last 30 years. The closest the story gets to the umbrella metaphor is perhaps one quote from Jennifer Gross, an associate professor of history at Jacksonville State University: "We need to broaden our idea of what history is."

The second image from this weekend is interestingly enough also only the creation of the headline writer. In this case the Jason Zweig column--"Corporate-Cash Umbrellas: Too Big for This Storm?"--in the Wall Street Journal is about the near record $811 billion in cash and marketable securities that nonfinancial firms in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index have on their books. He certainly alludes to this as being safety precaution of sorts, writing at one point: "Cash is not trash, of course; the natural urge to set a little money aside for a rainy day feels urgent in a recession." However, since Zweig argues that these cash supplies are a "flood" and that shareholders deserve an explanation of why they are being kept from the benefit of the funds (in terms of increased dividends or stock repurchases), it is very unclear who is being protected by a cash umbrella.

Skoda and the Umbrella Holder: A Car for Us

Skoda has been doing this for a while, but there is new publicity as it introduces cars for various Asian markets (India, Singapore). As Cars Singapore writes about the Skoda Suberb and its interior features: "even a water resistant umbrella storage space which can be found in the inner panel of the left rear door. It also has a drainage system draws off the rainwater so that the umbrella undergoes 'self-drying'. Nice touch." Or, as BS Motoring describes it: "the Rolls-Royce Phantom feature (the umbrella that hides inside the rear door) will" impress you!

Judith Hoffberg: A Friend of Umbrellas

Even though I have only been doing this blog seriously for a month or so, it seems a shame that it is only now that I have come across someone who had been a real friend of umbrellas--Judith Hoffberg. Although she died this past January, for almost 30 years, through her work on artists' books in her print and then online journal "Umbrella," she also raised the stature of umbrellas. In her poignant last Editor's Note, she wrote:

Obsessed with umbrellas and parasols, it allowed me to create a huge collection of “umbrelliana” which has overwhelmed both my domestic and storage settings. I learned more about textiles, fashion, kitsch, marketing, performance art, multicultural innovations with the object umbrella, encountering artists who used the image to intrigue me as well as to whet my appetite. It has been an easy image to collect in paper ephemera as well as almost 200 three-dimensional umbrella objects. From a tiny Chinese lace umbrella to a 19th century silk parasol, from 333 antiquarian books to countless artifacts, the collection has grown over the past 30 years.

However, there is even a longer discussion in a mail interview with her from 1995-1996, which I republish alongside the image she chose as her final image Natalia Kohen's "Closed Umbrella":

Well, since the name of my business became Umbrella Associates in 1978, thanks to a suggestion from Joan Hugo, as we were sitting in an airport in San Jose waiting for our late plane to Los Angeles after the First Artists' Publication Fair in San Jose in 1977. I had just resigned from the position of Executive Secretary of the Art Libraries Society of North America, which I had founded, and as we were sitting, Joan, a noted librarian and my co-curator in the Artwords & Bookworks exhibition, asked what I would be doing next; I hadn't the faintest idea at the time, but she had been thinking about it, and told me she had done some research. She had discovered that there was once a periodical called Parasol edited by Ricky de Marco, but it was not extant. Then she had looked through the entire list of periodicals and could not find any other periodical called "Umbrella", and so she thought I should start a business as a consultant, called Umbrella Associates, and publish a newsletter called Umbrella, and so I did.

A strong interest in umbrellas had never occurred to me -- except for one print which I had bought in 1966 in Washington, DC which I have in my office. But since my interest in mail art had been growing at the same time I founded my business, I decided that the symbol of umbrella had potential as a logo, an indentifying icon, and perhaps a way for me to send mail art around the world with that image. After learning that my friend Kurt de Gooyer had become curator of a Museum of Photography on the University of California, Riverside campus, he was involved in a group called Art Spies, and he thought it would be a good thing to have a mail art show in his museum, and so I announced to the world that the theme of the show was "Umbrellas" and having contacted just about everyone I knew from the mail art world, I started receiving lots of mail art, actual found umbrellas, etc. With over 400 entries, I began to see the potential for a collection. As an archivist, it was easy to organize this material in notebooks, and so it began. Now I have over 60 volumes of paper ephemera about umbrellas, including handmade postcards and broadsides, advertisements, articles about umbrellas, newspaper photos, photographs both black and white and color, antique postcards and advertising ephemera, and much more.

The collection has grown largely due to my many trips around the world including Australia and New Zealand, and continental Europe. I buy postcards of Umbrellas wherever I go and some summers I came back with 250 postcards of umbrella images. Then, too, I take pictures of Umbrellas wherever I see them, including inside shots and outside shots. So if I cannot buy an item, I take a picture of it. Many artists send me things, including jewelry, clothing, paper items, postcards, etc. As a result, I have learned to live with some of the material but until this year, I have had to store the collection, except for 1984, when I showed the collection as Umbrelliana in the Bumbereshoot Festival in Seattle, Washington, which is held every year on the first weekend of September. I filled 4000 square feet of space, and there still was much material at home. Now the collection has increased a great deal more, but now I live with most of it, having decorated my new apartment with umbrellas everywhere -- in the kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, office, and everywhere else. It is a universal well known item, whether it be protection against the sun (parasol) or protection against the rain (umbrella), and so I even have taken that name on the internet.

Fashion Umbrellas: Celebrate National Umbrella Month with Celebrity Brollies

The Chicago Sun-Times shopping maven Jessica Sedgwick honors National Umbrella Month by her readers to treat themselves to a "little undercover fashion." In do so, she quotes Satoko Kobayashi, owner of pare*umbrella, one of several new companies who offer artsy, statement-making umbrellas: "Now is the time people have started to think, 'Now we need something more than a compact umbrella. Something beautiful to carry around.' "

Sedgwick goes further, in her Sun-Times shopping blog, to point us to famous movie umbrellas and where to find them. In particular, she highlights the "Singin' in the Rain/Batman Returns" black stick umbrella, the "Lost in Translation" clear umbrella, and the "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" stick umbrellas "in every color including red, pink blue and yellow."

March 13 is Coming: Open an Umbrella Indoors Day

Well, this is the year to ward off bad luck. Not only can we celebrate Friday the 13th by opening up black umbrellas indoors, but I now find that--UNRELATED to it being Friday--March 13 has been celebrated at National Open an Umbrella Indoors Day, with much of the same concern for all the care one must take with umbrellas:

According to some, it's only considered bad if any of the following apply:

• The umbrella was a gift.
  
• The umbrella is black.
  
• The umbrella has never been used outdoors.
  
• There is a sick person in the house.

Other bad luck umbrella superstitions:

• Never give an umbrella as a gift.
  
• Never pick up an umbrella you dropped (ask someone to do it for you).
  
• Never place your umbrella on a table or a bed.
  
• If a single woman drops her umbrella, she'll never marry.

Trying to run down the origin of this and am now finding that the Dull Men's Club thinks all of March is Umbrella Month:

March is the month to honor one of the most versatile and underrated inventions of the human race. The month is dedicated to the use of and conversations about umbrellas. If you belong to a Dull Men’s Club in your community, have umbrellas as a discussion topic for one of your meetings this month.

But, cannot find out anything more! Let us get to the root of this one.

The Bottle Cap Umbrella: Not New, But New to Me

Well, they seem to have been around for a while, but if it is new to me, it is still ripe for the Brolly Blog. So, here's a link to Samm's Umbrellas and their unique "Bottle Cap Umbrella," which they describe as the world's first successful flat-top umbrella and the world's first flat-surface umbrellas for advertising. According to Samm's website: "The refreshingly new "Bottle Cap Umbrella" using innovative engineering design, perpetuates the umbrella in the field of advertising without the sacrifice of functional protection." Thus, these umbrellas resist inversion or collapse and do not trap wind.

I am not an advertiser and I have not tried one out, but they certainly are flat!

Ready for Friday the 13th? Opening Your Black Umbrella Indoors

After decades of being away from the scene, London's Eccentric Club is bringing back Friday the 13th with the "Annual Friday the 13th Dinner," allegedly held since 1780s--the traditional superstition-defying bad-luck-omen-denying Annual Dinner of men of reason and science. The Club intends to follow most of the traditions of the dinner, where all guests arriving would have to go under a ladder, look into a broken mirror, spill salt, open a black umbrella indoors, etc.

This Friday the 13th tradition has also been carried over the ocean, as can be seen from this scene at the 2007 Hollywood Friday the 13th Club dinner. Now, there is certainly a superstition about black cats and "opening an umbrella indoors" is considered bad luck, but I am not sure why we have to break the curse by using just black umbrellas?!

Now, another superstition is new to me: "Dropping an umbrella on the floor means that there will be a murder in the house." So be extra careful out there when you open your umbrellas indoors on Friday!

And here are more superstitions about umbrellas:

• It is bad luck to give an umbrella as a gift.
• If you drop an umbrella, do not pick it up. Instead, have someone else do it for you, or you will be the recipient of bad luck.
• If a single woman drops an umbrella, she will never marry.
• If an umbrella is opened outside when it is not needed, rain, and other bad weather, will follow.

Dave "Umbrella" Watson: Duck Decoy Carver

A different take today--back to "real" umbrellas, but focusing on the umbrella holder, not the umbrella image. While Rhianna may have become the "Umbrella" girl because of her singing a song with that name, Dave Watson, duck decoy carver, is the first person I have come across with the nickname "Umbrella".

According to The Great Book of Wildfowl Decoys by Bill Buckner, Dave "Umbrella" Watson (1851-1938) got his nickname because he always carried an umbrella, rain or shine. Even better, Shorebirds: The Birds, the Hunters, the Decoys by John M. Levinson and Somers G. Headley reports that he said:

"Any fool could carry an umbrella when it was raining, but it took a smart man to carry one when the sun was shining."

Htidaw: Sacred Umbrella Hoisted on Pagodas in Myanmar

Before we can understand the role of umbrellas in life, we need to continue to understand each of their presences. Thus, as I learn today, preparations are "under way to consecrate and complete a replica in Naypyidaw of Burma's famous Shwedagon Pagoda." The inauguration ceremonies will be marked by hoisting its Htidaw (sacred umbrella) and Seinbudaw (diamond bud). So, now what can I find out about "Htidaw"?

By one definition, it is "Holy umbrella like steel structure mounted on top of the temple usually covered with gold leaves and decorated with jewelleries." According to an article by Min Zin in Irrawaddy:

The practice of co-opting religious symbolism for political ends literally reaches its pinnacle with the ceremonial hoisting of the htidaw ("umbrella") on the top of pagodas that have been newly constructed or renovated. This act is regarded as the ultimate merit-making event, and yet it has no basis whatsoever in Buddhist doctrine. According to historian Dr Than Tun, "This practice began in the 15th century, when a Mon king invaded Burman-dominated territory and put a big crown made like his own on top of each pagoda in the land he conquered." As retaliation, "The Burmese king put a likeness of his own crown on top each pagoda when he re-seized his land."

In early 1999, Burma’s military rulers held a htidaw-hoisting ceremony to mark the completion of a major renovation of the country’s most sacred religious edifice, the Shwedagon Pagoda. The ceremony, which was treated as one of the most important religious events of the 20th century, culminated with the generals shouting "Aung Pyi! Aung Pyi!" ("We won! We won!"). Far from sharing in the generals’ sense of victory, however, local people were left feeling more defeated than ever.

So, are we talking politics or culture? Searching for images on Google finds that they are almost all on official Myanmar releases, certainly lending weight that the symbolism is completely political. That still begs the question of what the symbolism is, except some aspect of coopting history. Reading more, the Htidaw is made from gold, so there is a whole cultural aspect of donations of gold to make the Htidaw and soliciting moneys for it.

San Francisco School Protest Where Umbrella Symbol Makes Sense

I have already written about the sex workers and their red umbrella protests, but the Rainy Day Fund Umbrella Project is a little more local and a lot more specific. As part of a protest against the failure to release all the funds from the "Rainy Day Fund" for schools, parents are urged, among other things, to bring umbrellas to a March 16 protest and then post pictures of the event--so come back on March 17 and see those umbrellas!

Umbrella Hat: Or Androgynous Sex Symbol?

According to Casey Spooner of the electro duo known as Fischerspooner, the headgear he is wearing on the cover of their new album is "based on a Kabuki dance called Wisteria Maiden.... In the traditional dance, they use a hat that becomes lots of things. It is a prop that transforms into an umbrella, a shield and a palette." However, during a dance he does at the beginning of their show about outer space, "the hat signifies even more things: the moon, isolation, ambition, show biz and space travel. I like that it combines several strange and conflicting references that all add up. It is real neon that Lite Brite Neon installed with a battery pack so I can wear it on stage."

The Red Umbrella: Politics and the Sex Worker

Well, my next post was going to be the umbrella and politics, and it is, just not the one I was going to use. Will save that one for a rainy day. This one is better. I will see if I can find some root for this, but the critical point as made by The Londonist is that the red umbrella has become the symbol of British sex workers.

It's against the Policing and Crime Bill which it is feared will further criminalise them and their clients. The protest is organised by xtalk who run free English classes for migrant sex workers. Participants, whether strippers, escorts, working girls, maids, models, city brokers or Londonist readers are encouraged to bring a red umbrella and meet at that most potent of misunderstood London sex symbols, Eros in Piccadilly Circus, at 2pm on Tuesday 31st March.

Well, that was easy. Here is the "official word" on "Why Red Umbrellas?":

The red umbrella is a symbol of the international sex workers’ rights movement (see www.sexworkeurope.org). It symbolises both the literal shelter needed if working on the street, and demonstrates our solidarity with all sex workers who are frequently marginalised and excluded, both from their communities and from the debates about our industry.

And taking this back one more step, according to an article by Pye Jakobson and Petra Timmermans "The Red Umbrella, originally used by sex workers demonstrating in Venice, Italy, is a 'symbol of beauty and resistance to humans' and sky's attacks, red'."

Gerhard Richter Painting "Woman with Umbrella" at National Portrait Gallery

In this painting, the umbrella is folded, not opened. This seems to be a much rarer image--especially for one where the woman is holding the umbrella.

According to Martin Newman in the Mirror, In "Woman with Umbrella" (1964) [part of a series of paintings from press photos of John F. Kennedy’s assassination], Richter "consciously presents Jacqueline Kennedy as an anonymous woman in the street. Her face concealed by her hand conveys a horror amplified by the razor like horizontal paint strokes. But the portrait is not recognisably Jackie and the meaning of this moment is taken out of its real setting, to deliberately stymie any reading of it."

Richard Bonnet's take in the Telegraph on the painting:"In one hand [Kennedy] carries an umbrella, with the other she covers her mouth, as though to stop herself from crying out. By using feathery brushstrokes to blur the original image, Richter allows us to imagine that rain has blurred the camera lens, or else that we are looking at the photograph through our own tears. By giving the painting a neutral title, Woman with an Umbrella, Richter turns a real woman photographed at a certain moment in her life into a universal image of insupportable grief."

At the National Portrait Gallery until May 31.

Discovering the Olakkuda: The Palm Leaf Umbrella of the Pana

Today's random reading is about "Utsavam 2008-09," a showcase of artistic talent in 14 districts of Kerala, India. In particular, I learn that "Porattukali or Porattu Natakam is a theatre art that is being sustained in the districts of Palakkad and Thrissur mainly by the members of Pana community. Their main profession is making of the traditional umbrella, Olakkuda, and weaving."



Thanks to the "Song of the Waves" blog, one can learn that the umbrella is an integral part of telling the story during the festival marking the annual visit of the mythical King Mahabali (Maveli) to Kerala. However, one also learns that "olakkuda is a rare sight. One finds them mostly in curio shops and tourist places. Hardly any one uses olakkuda now."

To the right, Artist Namboothiri illustrates Edasseri's Poem Poothapattu - Song on the Poltergeist picture of Unni, who is on his way to the "pallikkoodam" (school) and "is holding the ezhuthani (iron scribe) in his left hand and the cut-to-size treated palm leaves to write on and Olakkuda (an umbrella made of palm leaves) in the right hand."