THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is never a dull moment here. The counter at city’s umbrella shop is flocked by customers. While some demand the styles they saw in websites, others opt for the trendy-yet-vintage looking grandfather umbrellas. And, a few others need colourful ones to light up the season. Nevertheless, with rains lashing down, umbrella showrooms in the city are having a field day and sales are shooting up.
Keeping up with the tradition, leading umbrella manufacturers have come up with many innovations to lure in customers, this time around too. With a wide array of patterns, colours, cartoons and other add-on features, the choices are galore. The kids are the main target and most of the umbrellas for children come attached with quirks like whistles in different shapes and canopy adorned with vibrant images of their favourite cartoon characters like Spiderman, Ben 10, Barbie, Disney Princesses and Chota Bheem.
“Children normally come in demanding umbrellas that have pictures of their favourite cartoon characters while youngsters prefer coloured varieties and grandfather umbrellas,” says Sunitha Rajeev, a sales representative at a leading umbrella mart in the city. The sheen is off the ubiquitous black umbrellas as most prefer coloured ones, she says.
Be it the canopy, tip, handle or the stretcher, there is not a point where an innovations is not attempted. The selfie stick umbrella which comes with a selfie stick, the ‘pipee’ umbrella for kids that comes with a case affixed to the tip, the handle of the grandfather umbrella which doubles up as a walking stick or the tiny toy umbrellas for kids, the canopy of which is just 235 mm wide, the choices are aplenty.
The handles and stretchers throw up surprises too. The ‘rose umbrella’ has the tip and handle modified to the shape of a rose while a few has stretchers made in lotus shape. Grandfather umbrellas the canopy of which boasts of pictures of ‘Kathakali’ have found many takers among foreigners. The priciest one is the umbrella which works only if it is ‘charged’ and opens with the flick of a button. The cost comes to around `5,500.