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Washington Coverup
Neil Cross, president of Umbrellas.com in Rye, N.Y., sells many styles of umbrellas. He says people are buying his wares for "rainy days and sunny days."
More and more, he says, "people are using umbrellas for all sorts of different things."
  Hot item: Umbrellas aren't just for rain anymore. (By Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post) |
His company will soon be offering a beach umbrella with ultraviolet light protection.
Lynn Rose, owner of California-based Soleil Chic, makes umbrellas with ultraviolet ray protection sewn right into the fabric. She has been in business since 2003 and sales have improved each year. "If you use an umbrella for rain that can't really harm you," Rose says, "why wouldn't you use an umbrella to protect you against the sun that can kill you?"
The sun, she says, "has some very bad effects. You may not die from it, but you can be scarred."
Though she won't give out figures, she says that sales are up "because it's just so hot. People are looking for something to break that intense heat."
Back on the Mall, Luz Alzate, 50, is visiting from Colombia. She is walking along the sidewalk near the USDA under a black umbrella. "I didn't used to carry an umbrella around because the sun wasn't that harsh," she says through an interpreter. Now she takes an umbrella everywhere because "there is a lot of sun and there is a lot of rain, too."
While other countries understand the value of sun-thwarting parasols and "sunbrellas," contemporary America is just beginning to warm to the idea. When an open umbrella was spotted on the Zapruder film of President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination, conspiracists saw it as something unexplainable. Today there might be a few more open umbrellas at the scene.
On the Mall, the Moore family of Blacksburg, Va., takes in the sun-drenched sights. Teresa Moore, 43, and daughter Samantha, 9, carry umbrellas. Teresa's is lavender, Samantha's pale green. In black skirt, black shades and a black T-shirt that reads "My Mom Rocks" in pink Gothic type, Samantha looks especially hip.
Teresa says she owns seven umbrellas and takes one wherever she goes.
Her husband, Walker, 38, laughs and says Teresa might start carrying one at night to protect against "moonburn."
Mother has taught daughter always to carry an umbrella. "It's a handy tool," Teresa says. It's a fashion accessory. It's a weapon. It's a sunshade for the empty car.
"When there's rain, you've got it," she explains, "and when it's hot, you've got it."
And, Samantha adds, "it's good for scaring pigeons."
