Blue and White Traditional Wagasa 'Aizome'

White wagasa parasol with indigo peonies massed at the edge and an ink inscription

Indigo on white, from the edge in. This wagasa has a white canopy with peonies and leaves in a deep indigo blue massed round the outer edge and thinning towards the centre, so the parasol is dark at the rim and white at the cap, with a short inscription brushed in black at the right. It is drawn as a dye pattern, in one blue with the white left.

It is the parasol in the collection with the most indigo, and the one for the indigo yukata in the range.

The name, Aizome, is indigo dyeing, the blue of the canopy, and the print is drawn the way an indigo cloth is dyed.

The frame is wood: a straight shaft, a ring of thin ribs radiating from a red-lacquered cap at the top, and a second ring of stretchers beneath that push the ribs open, with a runner that slides up the shaft and locks. The canopy is a cloth with the look of oiled paper, not paper, which is why it survives a shower, a suitcase and a child, and why the print is even to the edge.

Carry it closed by the shaft and open it with the runner, which slides up and clicks. It is a parasol first: made for sun and for photographs, over a yukata or a kimono at a festival, a wedding, a garden, and it will shrug off a few drops of rain but not an afternoon of it. Opened and hung from its cap, it is a lamp shade without the lamp.

The inscription is a short Chinese phrase in a brush hand at the right, the mark of the style rather than a message, and the peonies are the detail: they are drawn in one blue with the white of the canopy as the highlight, which is how a stencil-dyed cloth gets its light.

Every umbrella in the collection is photographed open, standing on its cap, on the same pale ground at the same scale, so the pages compare: they are the same size and the same frame, and the canopy is the difference.

Dry it open if it gets wet, out of the sun, and close it only when the canopy is dry. Store it closed in its sleeve. The ribs are thin, so it is carried, not thrown.

From across a garden it is a white circle with a blue rim. From close the rim is peonies, the blue shows its depth, and the inscription its strokes. It is the parasol for an indigo yukata and a person who likes one colour.