I Keep This Mini-Umbrella on My Person at All Times
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I like to be prepared but hate feeling encumbered when I leave the house, which means I am discriminating about bag real estate. I always carry my phone, wallet, and athree-zip LeSportsac pouchfilled with essentials: mints, eye drops, Band-Aids, tissues, lip balm, period products, and a hair tie. If I’m going to the office, I’m also packing my laptop, so anything extraneous has to really be worth its weight and volume in usefulness. (I recently bought amicro-mini Hydro Flaskfor the occasional mid-commute sip, and that has surprisingly made the cut.)
This need to feel free extends to my physical person as well. Using an umbrella in New York is one of my top-five least-favorite activities. As ashort person, I’m always getting dripped on by taller people’s umbrellas, and I somehow always have to raise mine above my head to accommodate theirs. I’d much rather wear a hooded rain jacket than fuss with an umbrella — but you don’t always know when it’s going to rain.
In those will-it-or-won’t-it forecast situations, the Davek Mini Umbrella is the only thing that makes sense. My husband had one for years and would talk about it all the time before he lost it. I thought it was expensive — and it is — but now that I finally have one, I get it. It’s seven inches long when folded up, which is just about the height of my Hydro Flask (their circumference is also more or less the same too), and weighs eight ounces. It slips as easily into myDragon Diffusion work bagas it does into my ’90s Kate Spade shoulder purse. My husband used to carry it in his pocket.
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The Davek Mini is, in fact, a small umbrella. When opened, it has a canopy diameter of 38 inches. Compare that to ourBest in Class pick, also from Davek,the Elite, which measures 50 inches. (Davek has ahandy chartcomparing all of its offerings, to give you an idea of scale.) It’s definitely sized for one person — this is not an umbrella you share — and it wouldn’t be my first choice in a downpour, but for an unexpected shower or drizzle, it’s more than sufficient.
I also love how mechanical and straightforward it is. There’s no button to open or close the canopy, and the handle is tiny and not the most ergonomic. But it works beautifully. Using the Davek Mini has actually given me a fuller appreciation of umbrella engineering. It comes in ten festive colors and with an unconditional lifetime guarantee. (Davek takes its umbrellas extremely seriously, an admirable quality that comes through in its product designs.)
The Mini is so compact that I don’t mind it taking up space even if it doesn’t rain a single drop all day. It has crossed over from situation-dependent things that rotate in and out of my bag — like hand sanitizer, sunglasses, AirPods, Baggus, and thatBug Bite Thing— to something I wouldn’t want to be caught (in the rain or not) without.
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