Product Development STORY | KALCT HEATBLOCK Aluminum Silver
Addressing the honest user sentiment: "Folding is a hassle."
The hidden everyday stress behind convenience
As extreme heat intensifies year after year, parasols have become an essential summer item. Looking around the city, many people choose folding umbrellas for their portability.
However, having researched umbrellas for over 30 years, I realized a certain "honest truth": the nagging, real-life stress that "it’s actually a chore to neatly fold it away every single time you use it."
For a quick shopping trip or a short walk to the station, a long umbrella—which you can quickly close and get moving with—is inherently much easier to use.
Yet, the reason long umbrellas are avoided boils down to one simple thing: they are heavy and cumbersome to carry.
Approximately 200g. Lightness that defies the norms of long umbrellas, and heat shielding that surpasses white.
"If we can just solve the issue of weight in long umbrellas, summer will be much more comfortable." Driven by this conviction, this ~200g long umbrella was born.
By combining lightweight carbon fiber, also used in aircraft, with an ultra-thin 0.06mm 20-denier polyester fabric, we achieved a weight roughly equivalent to a single smartphone, while remaining a long umbrella.
It is as short and compact as possible when carried, yet provides a secure size for rainy days when opened. Furthermore, we adopted a "silver" finish for the fabric to physically reflect heat.
This provides a level of coolness equal to or greater than that of white umbrellas, which are known for their high heat-shielding properties.
"Toughness" to deflect the wind that folding umbrellas cannot mimic
Choosing a long umbrella is also a return to "strength." I have seen many people struggling with folding umbrellas that have turned inside out after being caught by the wind in the sweltering city.
The multi-jointed structure of a folding umbrella is inevitably fragile against the wind. In our comparative tests, while a typical lightweight folding umbrella flipped inside out at a wind speed of 8m/s (wind strong enough to blow off a hat), this KALCT HEATBLOCK Aluminum Silver was proven to withstand up to 11m/s.
"Freedom from the hassle of folding," "overwhelming lightness and coolness," and "the strength to endure harsh weather." This umbrella, which combines all these features, will transform your summer commute into a stress-free, liberated experience.
