The Umbrella Shop is closing its doors after 82 years

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Corry Flader still remembers touring her grandfather’s factory as a child; watching the employees piece together intricate umbrellas with wooden handles and metal tips, propping up protecting fabrics.

These days, the current The Umbrella Shop president says she’s found herself reminiscing more than usual, and shedding more than a few tears.

After 82 years of keeping Vancouver dry in the rain, The Umbrella Shop will close its doors for the last time before the end of the year as Flader prepares to retire. The announcement was made Sept. 22 on the company’s Facebook account and website.

“I’ve been crying a lot and I realized that I’m putting to bed a whole bunch of ghosts,” Flader said. “I’m putting to bed generations of umbrella men who came before that have put their whole life into the project of making umbrellas.”

Mounting health concerns and aging factory equipment were the main reasons behind the decision, Flader said.

She’s run the company since 2003, joining her brother Glen, who took over in the 1980s.

“I have to imagine every single woman and man who would look at it and if that’s attractive to them, and think of different faces of people I meet in stores and what they’re looking for in beauty,”

The pair represent three generations of umbrella enthusiasts.

Flader’s grandfather Isadore Flader started as a door-to-door umbrella repair man. After a train porter told him of the opportunities for an umbrella man in rainy Vancouver, he put his life and family on a CN train and moved to the west coast where opened the first store, then called Vancouver Umbrella, in 1935.

By the mid-1950s, the company had more than 20 employees in a factory on Dunsmuir Street and Howe Street. Nearly everything the store sold was made locally. The factory was moved in 1972, but the tradition of locally-made products persisted to the end.

In the 1980s, Vancouver Umbrella went bankrupt and was bought by another branch of the family. Glen bought the machinery and renamed the store to The Umbrella and also became the inspiration for the trench coat-clad man on the logo.

“I think to run an umbrella factory, you have to be extremely passionate because there’s no rhyme or reason with the dollars and cents, and I will tell you honestly, there’s no money in the money in the actual making of umbrellas on American soil. The reason we’re the last left is because it’s a labour of love.”

Flader says what they’ve been able to import and create overseas has subsidized their Canadian operation.

But even with a steady business model, Flader says aging equipment is also behind the closure.

“Those machines can’t do anymore. They’re finished. I have machines from the 1940s,” she said with a laugh, adding her repair man comes out of retirement especially to fix their equipment when it breaks down.

Following her brother’s death three years ago, Flader says she felt something was missing on the factory floor and in the shops.

Other family passed on the offer to take over the business and Flader says her children, in the late teens and early twenties, may not be ready to take over.

“I never put it on the market. It’s not for sale because I think it’s time to put it to bed,” Flader said.

The downtown and Granville Island locations have already closed their doors, while the locations on West Pender and West Broadway will stay open to liquidate the remaining inventory. Flader says the moment the notice went up on Facebook, people began flocking to the store to snap up the umbrellas for themselves or for gifts.

The stores will stay open until at least the end of November, with plans to close down the factory by the Dec. 31.

As for Flader, she says she isn’t ready to completely retire yet. She has an upcoming surgery and hopes to focus on her health in the near term, but her love of designing umbrella patterns has taken her into the world of interior design and she wants to pursue it further.

“We did a really great job and we’re so proud of what we’ve done. All of us at the Umbrella Shop just want to hug the city of Vancouver for supporting us for as long as it has.”