“I had a friend carrying one of these in Chinatown and someone bumped him,” says Jay Lee, a designer at Kikkerland, purveyor of kitschy, fun doodads. “He goes, What’d you say? And it worked!” No wonder: the company’s new umbrellas–titled, “Umbrellas for the Civil but Discontented Man”–have handles that look like sword hilts. Depending on your style, you can opt for ye olde broadsword, a samurai sword (available now for $30 at Think Geek), or a dashing officer’s rapier. Granted, these aren’t functional weapons like these fighting umbrellas that Gizmodo posted:
Alas, these umbrellas don’t unfurl when you tug on the hilt. They activate with a push button. But as Lee notes, prevention is really the best weapon. The goal of self defense being of course to never get into a fight in the first place:
The sword umbrellas weren’t the only clever pieces that Kikkerland showed off at ICFF this year (though they were obviously the most threatening). For $30, a set of magnetic pixels that reveals a drawing of a caped crusader:
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For $12, a series of erasers in the shape of disappearing animals–a rhino, a gorilla, and a polar bear. As you rub, the animal disappears. 2% of the proceeds go towards the Center for Biodiversity:
The booth itself, designed by Jan Habraken, was made out of Campbell’s soup cans, which were donated to charity after the show. Hard to get more functional–and visually arresting–than that:
