On high streets around the country, people wielding umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun have become a common sight. On Thursday, as the Austrian Grand Prix declared a heat hazard, Lewis Hamilton was spotted in the paddock holding a Ferrari red umbrella that matched his race suit. And they\u2019re popping up on catwalks, too. At the Dior show during Paris fashion week<\/a> on Wednesday, guests including the actors James Marsden and Mike Faist were handed large cream umbrellas to help ease their discomfort as temperatures hit 38C.<\/p>\n Earlier in the week, at the Thom Browne show in Milan, models held grey-and-white-striped golf-style umbrellas on the alfresco runway, while the accessory on the sun-soaked front row was a black brolly. Brands including Burberry<\/a> and Herm\u00e8s champion three-figure brollies for downpours, an accessory now shifting from a winter to summer must-have.<\/p>\n Under cover \u2026 Lewis Hamilton ahead of the F1 Grand Prix in Austria. Photograph: Clive Mason\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cAn umbrella provides your with your own personal shade,\u201d says Brian Diffey of the University of Newcastle. Diffey\u2019s expertise is in dermatological sciences, and he invented the UVA star rating for sunscreen in 1992. \u201cThe main benefit of an umbrella,\u201d he tells me, \u201cis that it acts as a heat reducer.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan Cros, founder of the London brolly brand Original Duckhead<\/a>, known for its signature duck-shaped handles, describes umbrellas as becoming \u201cmuch more of a year-round product\u201d. Sales at the brand are now \u201csteadier through the summer than they used to be\u201d, which Cros credits to sun rather than rain.<\/p>\n Phil Naisbitt, store manager at James Smith & Sons, an umbrella shop in central London that dates to 1830, reports a spike in demand for its frilly sun umbrellas<\/a>, particularly to use at weddings this week. \u201cWe first sold them in Victorian times, but then they went out of fashion,\u201d he says. Now heatwaves have led to a resurgence.<\/p>\n Anti-UV umbrellas are also becoming more common. \u201cUV protection is becoming a much bigger part of how people choose an umbrella,\u201d says Cros of Original Duckhead. For its part, the New Zealand-based company Blunt<\/a> designed a \u201cUV Metro\u201d brolly in a range of colours, including \u201clawn green\u201d that it says blocks at least 99% of harmful ultraviolet rays, yours for \u00a385. The Australian brand Solbari, meanwhile, specialises in UV protective clothing and has a \u00a349 \u201csunscreen umbrella\u201d<\/a> that features an ultra-reflective silver canopy and opaque underside to help block out UV rays, and Uniqlo recently released a compact UV version<\/a> for \u00a319.90.<\/p>\n Keeping out the rays \u2026 Blunt. Photograph: Blunt<\/p>\n Diffey says a specialist umbrella isn\u2019t necessary: they all offer a similar level of UV protection. \u201cOn a sunny day about 50% of the ultraviolet reaching our skin is coming from the sun and the other 50% is coming from the sky with UV rays hitting skin from other directions,\u201d he explains. \u201cA brand might say it has a UV protection of 50, but what you are actually getting is equivalent to putting on a sunscreen with a factor 3.\u201d<\/p>\n
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