The Bloom umbrella
Five years ago, the Royal Botania Palma umbrella was the attraction of the Salone del Mobile in Milan. The smooth organic lines of this first strutless automatic garden umbrella were so appreciated that the Red Dot Award jury gave Palma the Best of the Best prize and featured it on the front cover of their yearbook. Now Bloom has seen the light of day. It retains the clean lines and organic shape of the Palma but is technically a completely different masterpiece. To allow for bigger sizes of canopy, the pneumatic system of the Palma has been replaced by a lever-operated spindle system in Bloom. When the spindle is activated, the upper part of the hub is pulled down to join the lower one, while all the small supporting ribs join nicely into one solid-looking, organically-shaped piece. As such, the Bloom looks like a strutless umbrella, although in fact it is not. Seen from below it gives the umbrella the elegant look of a flower in bloom. Hence the name.
Bloom comes in a 3.3m and 3.8m round version as well as a 2.75×2.75m and 3.3×3.3m square version.
The aluminium ribs and the stainless steel pole come coated in Black, White or Sand colour, with an array of colours for the canopy.