Rainy Day brings Himane to WNYC

We got a call this morning from a WNYC reporter who had seen Brooklyn designer Catherine Charlot's umbrella bags at our kiosk in Grand Central last summer. The early morning rainstorm had led reporter, Ailsa Chang, to investigate what happened to all those wind torn umbrellas found crumpled in trash cans. I too was thinking of Catherine this morning as I landed at Penn Station during my morning commute. The "umbrella men" had materialized once again. I could hear the voices before I even exited the station. I walked behind one seller who walked up and down the whole taxi cue chanting "umbrella, umbrella, umbrella, pause...and...repeat". Some people stood hiding under their New York Times, others under a plastic bag, but the majority of people clutched their $5 cheap umbrella- bound to break in a few uses. The sellers quickly passed their "disposable products" to those unprepared for the day's skies.

Catherine's designs have caused me to never look at an umbrella the same. Each one is a potential bag or dress, a design and a metaphor. When I see people carrying a particular interesting design, I think about how she would turn it into a clutch or duffel bag. Just last month I found a rainbow leopard umbrella print umbrella discard on the street which I took home and sent to Catherine's company Himane. This upcycling of abandoned umbrellas by Catherine is an amazing example of using abandoned resources for useful (and in her case very fashionable) products.

WNYC reports that one week Catherine collected 237 umbrellas in one week!
Check out the full story here!

Give us your tired, your used. Your worn and broken umbrellas.

Yearning to be recycled. The especially rainy beginning to this summer got us thinking about umbrellas - and how there's so many of them that wind up in the city's streets and trash cans after a gusty rainstorm. So we were thrilled to team up with Himane, a fashion and design company founded by Haiti native Catherine Edouard-Charlot to collect broken umbrellas from water-logged commuters at our Grand Central kiosk.

Catherine refashions the umbrellas into creatively designed and waterproof bags and totes which we then sell at $15 for a tote, which when folded resembles an umbrella and $45 for a multipurpose and portable folding bag. We also offer custom bags from the Himane collection. So let it rain!