Dating them can be tricky, yet we can see the origins of parasols in ancient Egypt, Greece, China and Persia. According to Egyptian paintings and sculptures, the parasol was reserved exclusively for the monarch, carried by a (usually female) attendant. Parasol use passed, both as a distinction of the upper crust and a luxury, into Greece and Rome. Not only did it protect royalty from being tanned by the sun, it represented the arch of heaven open above the sovereign.

Parasols and umbrellas also represented early religious symbolism: Nut, the ancient Egyptian mother goddess, was sometimes thought to be arching her body over the earth. Osiris, the son of Nut and god of the Underworld, was also associated with the umbrella and bringer of rain. In India, the Hindu god Vishnu, brought back the rain-giving umbrella of Varuna, whose name means “he who covers”. The Greeks and Romans assimilated these stories with Dionysius and Bacchus, both rain-bringing gods, but the Greeks developed the widespread use of the carrying of parasols by women. This practice stemmed from the worship of Dionysius, where a parasol was carried over his likeness at festivals. Subsequently, this became customary for other gods and goddesses, including Pallas Athena, the goddess of truth. Athenian women had parasols held over them at feasts in her honor.

Although parasols were in continuous use in Italy since the Roman era, due in part to their use by the Pope, it wasn’t until the Italian Renaissance that parasols were seen throughout Europe. French women popularized their use during the seventeenth century; by the eighteenth century the English adopted them, as they did with much of French fashion.

Parasols are so strongly tied to the Victorian era because of Victorian women’s desire for pale skin. This coveted look was beyond being seen as beautiful; it was a status symbol that separated ladies from working class women. Although bonnets were worn to keep the sun off women’s faces, by the mid-1800’s the size of women’s hats grew smaller and bonnets were seen as dowdy and matronly.

The handles of fashionable parasols started out short (under 28") early on and grew longer as the decades progressed. They reached their longest in the Edwardian era, so that the tip of the parasol rested on the floor and the handle extended to the lady’s hand or waistline. Some parasol handles even collapsed in two for easy storage. Parasol handles were predominantly straight, not curved like an umbrella’s.

The diameter of parasols also increased as the nineteenth century advanced. Early Victorian fashion plates show parasols the size of handkerchiefs; generally the ratio of handle to diameter was one-to-one, as opposed to the one-to-two ratio of umbrellas.

While umbrellas continued to provide shelter from the rain, parasols fell out of fashion in the 1920s and 1930s when tanned skin became popular. Sun-kissed skin was by then the sign of a lady who could afford to go away on a vacation. Practical umbrellas were in demand, and by the 1950s, the telescopic folding umbrella led the way. Transparent PVC umbrellas became fashionable in the 1960s, and have been marketed today, but less so because of the environmental concerns with the use of PVC.

Most of the mainstream parasol use I see today in the city is usually by elderly Asian ladies on hot summer days, but with the Gothic Lolita scene and the Steampunk crowd, parasols are an ideal summer accessory. The ornamentation ideas are endless: Lolita parasols can be heaped with lace and ribbons while Steampunks may go for something a bit simpler with a post-apocalyptic feel.