About
Shade, cut like a shirt.
The idea
Shade you wear. In January the UV index reaches 11 or more across nearly all of Australia (Bureau of Meteorology), so we make clothes for those hours: poplin shirts, wide pants, a shirt dress, a long-sleeve one-piece, a hat and the frames to go with them, worn from the first swim to the last light.
When Cancer Council asked Australians to slip, slop, slap in 1981, slipping on a shirt came first. We started there, with a shirt you would wear anyway.
The name comes from the Latin umbella, a little shade.
The clothes
Cotton–nylon poplin in shade green, bone, ink and a fine pinstripe, cut generous so the air moves under it. Sleeves reach the elbow or the wrist, collars button to the throat and pants run to the ankle, because coverage is the point.
Every garment and the hat are rated UPF 50+ to AS/NZS 4399:2020, colour by colour: the top rating the Australian standard gives. A rating applies only to the skin a piece covers, so each page says what that is.
Clothing is one layer. Shade, a hat, sunglasses and sunscreen on whatever is left bare do the rest.
The store
Ombelle is based in Australia. We currently ship within Australia only, with free standard shipping from A$150. Prices are in Australian dollars, and you see shipping before you pay.
