A Short History of the Clear Umbrella
For most of its long history the umbrella was opaque: oiled paper, silk, waxed cotton. The clear umbrella is a far more recent idea, and it arrived from two very different directions.
Paper, silk and cotton
Umbrellas and parasols are among the oldest accessories we have, with long histories in China, India, Egypt and Persia. For most of that time they were made from whatever would keep off sun or rain: oiled paper stretched over bamboo, silk, and later waxed cotton and nylon. None of these could be seen through. To shelter under an umbrella was, more or less, to disappear beneath it.
A vinyl umbrella in post-war Tokyo
Clear plastic film changed that. In Japan, the Tokyo umbrella maker White Rose is generally credited with developing one of the first vinyl umbrellas in the late 1950s. The idea took time to catch on, but by the later decades of the century the inexpensive clear umbrella had become a fixture of Japanese cities, sold from convenience stores and left by the hundred in stands outside stations.
That clear umbrella was practical rather than precious. It let commuters see the crowd ahead of them, and it was cheap enough to buy on the way out of a station and leave behind on the way home.
The Queen's dome
At the other end of the scale was Queen Elizabeth II, who for decades carried a clear, dome-shaped umbrella on public engagements in the rain. The reasoning was simple. People who have waited in the wet to see someone want to see them, and a dark canopy would have hidden her face. Her umbrellas often had a coloured trim chosen to match her coat, so they read as part of what she was wearing rather than something to shelter behind.
Seen from both sides
Between those two umbrellas lies most of what makes a clear canopy appealing. It lets you see out, which matters on a busy street, and it lets you be seen, which matters more than most people admit. What it has rarely been is well made. Most clear umbrellas are still the convenience-store kind: thin film, stitched seams and a frame that lasts a season.
PRISM 01 begins with the same simple idea, a canopy you can see through, and gives it the construction it has usually gone without: holographic film laminated between two clear layers, heat-sealed panels and a fiberglass frame.