September showers (downpours) have us all permanently bedraggled, but the savviest commuters aren’t chucking on a Pac-a-Mac or panic-buying brollies in Boots. Japanese design experts Amvel have a smarter solution: an umbrella that is automatic-folding, ultra-lightweight and storm-withstanding, and promises to be the world’s lightest).
Verykal (£42, verykal.com), Amvel’s wonder-brolly, weighs just 162g — half that of an average umbrella. Its fabric is woven with a supple but firm 15-denier thread (the same as in tights or stockings) and is topped with a water-repellent coating that resists even the finest nano-class particles.
Just press the button once to open and close. It’s not just rain-proof: its metal structure is made from carbon fibre used in aircraft to ensure it survives any storm. Designers insist it’s capable of withstanding winds of 12 miles a second (this week’s wind speeds in the capital reached 10mph).
Other brands are hot on Amvel’s heels. KAZbrella (from £45, amazon.co.uk) aims to keep your desk dry by closing inside out, and opening vertically and up over your head to save awkward eye-poking incidents. Blunt, above (from £55, bluntumbrellas.co.uk) has brollies with rounded tips and Bluetooth tracking so you won’t lose it.
If you need to go hands-free, lululemon’s lightweight The Rain Is Calling Jacket (£198, lululemon.co.uk) uses a technical Glyde fabric that’s both waterproof and breathable, and Dutch commuter clothing company senscommon has developed a calf-length raincoat, below, (£292, senscommon.com) for cyclists, featuring protective snaps around the legs, dirt-repellent fabric and a peripheral vision hood.
North Face (thenorthface.co.uk) has developed a new breathable waterproof fabric, Futurelight, to replace Gore-Tex. It’s thanks to a process called nanospinning, which creates microscopic holes in the fabric while maintaining 100 per cent waterproofness — making it so breathable that clothes in a wet bag made of Futurelight would still dry out. No more “crunchy, muggy, unpackable” rain jackets, says North Face’s mountain sports expert Scott Mellin: “We can theoretically use the technology to make anything breathable, waterproof and for the first time, comfortable.”
To plan your outfit, the Dark Sky app (£3.99, darksky.net) puts rain at the forefront of its forecasting. Rain Alarm (free, rain-alarm.com) sends you an alert 15 minutes before a downpour, while YoWindow’s (free, yowindow.com) interface mimics the current weather, and Carrot’s (£4.99, meetcarrot.com) update lets you create custom notifications.
Never arrive soaked to a meeting again.
