Best Umbrellas, As Tested by Strategist Editors Ones that will keep you dry

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Best Umbrellas, As Tested by Strategist Editors Ones that will keep you dry

While there are plenty of perfectly serviceable umbrellas out there, we wanted to find the best version possible — one that will keep you dry, won’t flip, is easy to tote around, and (this isn’t asking too much) even looks nice. So ten members of the Strategist team — armed with top-reviewed contenders, from compact and motorized to steel-framed and maple-handled — waded into some of the gustiest corridors of the city. We checked for dryness, of course, but also for how their metal held up in the wind, how easy they were to open and close, and, last but not least, how we felt about being seen with them. These are 37 of the best umbrellas we tested.Straight Umbrella

Candidates: We combed through the Strategist’s previous coverage of umbrellas (the best-reviewed versions on Amazon, Seattleites’ favorite umbrellas), talked with shop owners of specialty stores Rain or Shine in New York and Bella Umbrella in New Orleans, and consulted various review sites to find the top-rated sticks and compacts in the umbrella-sphere.

Criteria: The most important thing an umbrella has to do is keep you dry, but not just that — we’ve lost many an umbrella to a gale-force wind, or simply left one at home because it was too bulky for the work bag. In addition to judging dryness, we also took into account an umbrella’s wind performance and comfort (encompassing its weight and portability as well). And while we appreciate a nice-looking umbrella, we do think for most people, looks are less important, so we rated each umbrella’s aesthetic on a less heavily weighted scale of one to three.

Methodology: Each of our ten writers and editors walked five city blocks under the umbrella (or about five minutes) in light-colored clothing — shirt and pants — to judge the umbrella’s ability to keep us dry. The lighter clothing allowed us to perform a ballpark visual test. We headed to notoriously windy corners (in the Financial District, at Court and Montague Streets in Brooklyn) to gauge the umbrellas’ sturdiness under gusty situations, and when wind did not cooperate, we ran down the sidewalk holding the umbrellas at an angle to simulate wind. In the event of a tie, the cheaper umbrella “won” (you’ll notice that many of the umbrellas received the same score, in which case we ranked them in descending order of price). Finally, after every umbrella was reviewed, a second tester tried each of the top five scoring umbrellas and rendered her judgment — the cumulative scores for those top five determined the final ranking.