When I was a kid, my grandmother wouldn’t go out of the house in the summer without her little lavender sun parasol. This was too much demureness for me when I was eleven years old, but I went along with her, silently frustrated at how ladylike she was, and how even at eleven I was failing at being a properly feminine Japanese girl.

Fast forward to a few years ago when I became aware of “aging” and young Japanese girls rediscovered the sun parasol. Of course the sun parasol has become in again. In bad economic times, the fashion rule goes, women turn to accessories! Now, it seems, that that sun parasol has become a multi-generational object of worship.

I finally broke down and bought my own parasol this year. It has a fake meisen silk print — meisen silk being another one of those things that has suddenly become “hot” again — and came with a note guaranteeing to protect me from harmful UV rays.

All this makes me wonder if the sun parasol will catch on in certain parts of the US. I do see some eccentrics carrying them here in NYC. And certainly the trend seems to be toward large 70s style hats for fall and summer to protect girls from the sun. Perhaps practical American women will pick up an umbrella soon.

This article was posted originally at Marie Mutsuki Mockett.