Trashbrella

This is more like it.

Monsoon Vermont is dedicated to creating sustainable livelihoods for slum-dwelling scavengers and sewers of Jakarta, Indonesia. In the manufacturing of Monsoon Vermont’s products, we do not seek to mimic an industrial workplace where efficiency means profit at the expense of its workers. We seek to honor the story of each person who scavenges, collages, and sews garbage into functional works of art.

Each umbrella is hand-made, the handle and tip are made of native wood and edges are lined with silky fabric. They look superhardy considering they’re made from old toothpaste and detergent packets. And the designs are really pretty…

Lovelybrella

I knew that there’d be someone in Seattle to kick my arse at the umbrella game. It’s famous for its rain and its big building which looks a bit like a giant flat umbrella (to the eyes of someone who has been writing this blog non-stop all week, almost everything does).

This umbrella is part of Design Commission’s December Gallery show, Chance of Showers: A Showing of Umbrellas and Benefit for 826 Seattle. Jen kindly linked me to their page on the Etsy shopping site and sparked immediate salivation from all who could see it.

Gorgeous, what? It’s a shame they’re not waterproof.

Oh, Vancouver kicks my arse too.

Bodicebrella

A couple of years ago those lovely hippies at Treehugger got together with some sponsors and launched a competition to create the best costume using discarded umbrella material and parts. Of five finalists the winner was Rainer Wolter’s Umbrella Redesign, which featured a necklace made of umbrella parts and a fantasic chestpiece boned with spokes. Here’s a photo.

Chiroptebrella

Like I said, I’m in the process of developing a way to make umbrellas from recycled materials. If you are going to recycle your old umbrellas in the meantime, though, you could do worse than to make them into a bat costume.

Nice.