Rainwear Central Rainwear Forum

The first Clear Umbrellas had a pvc canopy. These Umbrellas unfortunately had the small Size for Asian People, not the larger european people size. Also the canopy often ripped of the pins holding them on the mechanic. Todays clear umbrellas have an eva canopy. Its not that beautiful as the old pvc canopy but seems more durable and eare in euopean size. First the classic umbrella formfactor changed to eva, some years later also the dome umbrella type that was longer available with pvc canopy and also in european size.

there were also a few pvc canopy umbrellas in european size but that were very expensive and are no longer available. Most of them have the classic 8 segments, some rare types have 12,16 or even 20 segments.

rarer canopy materials for transparent umbrellas are polyester, poe and pp.

foldable clear umbrellas often use pp ore poe canopy

As i found in google, some fetish manufacturers have also umbrellas with leather canopy (black), latex canopy (mostly red, some black) and even with silk for those with silk fetish. These special types are all expensive.

Another special type was the Brelly with PLA (polylactid) canopy, a compostable bio plastic and a construction made of bamboo.

also there is an umbrella with black (not transparent) high gloss eva canopy and types with colored transparent pvc canopy (mostly the small asian size)

There are alco clear umbrellas with led illumination and pvc canopy.

Another type are these "metallic" umbrellas with high gloss eva canopy and a metal composit that shines in pink,yellow,red,blue depending on the anle,the light falls on it.

As ist seems unfortunately, pvc semms to disappear as the canopy material and eva seems to become the one and only industry standard here.

Maybe this is because of the higher durability or it is more eco friendly.

The clear 'bubble' umbrellas that were around in the 70s were fairly revolutionary at the time and every teenage girl seemed to have one at some time or other and they remain a great favorite on the Facebook nostalgia sites. But that's nostalgia - everything looks better looking back, as Lee Marvin 'sang'.

In fact, as many of those teen girls discovered as the fashion faded, they did not 'last' well, bent easily, were hard/impossible to keep clean (which reduced the vital 'see through' factor), took an age to dry (had to drip-dry as they didn't stand up), and most standard nylon umbrellas covered a much larger area and were shaped so you weren't walking into the cascade off the front. By the time I reached University in the late 70s, they had almost disappeared from the campus.

The Fulton or Clifton dome brollies that have been sold for the last 20 or so years - the feedback I got when I gave one as a gift was that they are a massive improvement in most of those areas. One improvement I hadn't picked up myself was that they now have a real handle you can grip properly.

It may make some people feel better, but the Queen from Buckingham Palace still sports a "bubble umbrella" when she walks in the rain.

I do love clear pvc umbrellas. I have 8 of them myself.