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A designer umbrella that covers all shades
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IT was an ordinary afternoon in 2011. Hangzhou designer Li You had just finished his lunch when his eyes caught on the disposable bamboo chopsticks in his hands.
Staring at it for a while, he associated it with the traditional Hangzhou specialty — silk-and-bamboo umbrella.
The local handicraft made with a natural bamboo as its rod has no crook and is not very comfortable to hold. “But what if it is made of ply bamboo?” Li thought.
And then for the next six months, he worked on redesigning a new bamboo umbrella. He called it “The Words of Bamboo.”
It met with immediate international success.
In 2013 the product won the Red Dot Award and iF Design Award in Germany. Earlier this month Li and his team were honored with the German Design Award Special.
The new product’s structure is similar to normal umbrella, but its ribs and rod are made of natural bamboo canes. The cover is bamboo carbon fiber fabric and coated with shower-proof adhesive.
As for the handle, it is made of ply bamboo, featuring a hollowed hole that sits comfortably into the hand.
“The umbrella is half traditional, half modern,” Li said. “We have retained much of the traditional concept while the modern machine helped in production.”
In the olden times, the Chinese bamboo umbrellas were all handmade, covered by paper or silk. It would take two weeks to finish just one umbrella, a process that included almost 20 procedures.
“The Words of Bamboo” incorporates some of those old procedures while also employing traditional handicraftsmen. For instance, the skeleton of old umbrella consists of spokes chopped from one piece of bamboo tube, for making those natural plant joints on spokes appear at same level.
Li retained it while also having the wattles shaped into cylinders by machines, so that they don’t prick the hands. He used the structure of the modern umbrella because it was stable. Despite flexible bamboo spokes replacing iron, steel joints are still used to connect all the parts in the product.
A magnet at the handle makes it easier to close the umbrella.
So far Li and his designer colleagues worked on 60 different shades of umbrellas. The main difference was the pattern on the covers made in 12 Chinese zodiac animals, 12 constellations and local Hangzhou culture.
The most popular one seems to be the so-called “couple umbrellas,” featuring ink-wash West Lake painting in white, and a black one with a drawing of Qiantang River in gold — both of them Hangzhou tourist attractions.
The new-look umbrellas have been a success given that many traditional handicrafts are either disappearing or kept in museums.
“The umbrella is a tool, a carrier of culture, and a great gift,” Li said, adding that half of their products were bought as souvenirs. Last year, they sold over 150,000 umbrellas with prices ranging from 199 yuan to 398 yuan.
As a designer as well an entrepreneur, all Li wanted was to have the market accept his “baby.”
“I could have stopped when we finished designing it,” recalled Li. “But I learned how to run an Internet store, promote it on the social media, and organize a team … for my ‘baby’.”
To get more people hooked on his product, Li is cooperating with a local carpentry workshop where visitors can work on a DIY bamboo umbrella, carve their names or slogans and shape the handles as they want.
“A culture won’t be discarded just because it becomes a lifestyle,” Li claimed.
Since all bamboo umbrellas are long because of the materials used, Li’s team is working on a foldable wooden umbrella and expects it to be ready sometime this year.
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