You don’t think that the sheer impracticality of hunting or harvesting grain while carrying an umbrella might be a more important factor? Ordinary people around the world have managed to own hats, hoods and the tools of their trades even when they did have only one change of clothes. An umbrella isn’t really any more of a specialty item.
The best way to be found is to make yourself big.
The best way to make yourself big is often a radio or ELT. A smoky fire is also a good way.
Since this is from a movie, I have to phrase it as a question rather than a fact.
Anywho, in Lawrence of Arabia, there’s a scene where Omar Sharif is waiting for O’toole to come back after returning to the harsh desert to rescue someone. While waiting on his camel, he erects a shading device over him. It’s sort of a minimal pavilion affair. Rectangular. Open in front (and sides?). Held up on sticks. Also white. (Which is key for anything held away from the body.)
Do these exist in real life?
(There are more complex affairs shown in this and other movies. But they seem to be used to shield women from other men’s eyes, rather than from the Sun.)
I currently live in a desert. If you go out at anytime after 10 am, there is a huge difference in temperature between any area that has been shaded from the sun all day and parts that haven’t- as much as 30 degrees F (pleasant vs. can fry eggs). When you walk around, the heat radiating from the ground is often worse than the hot air. Wearing a hat and long sleeves/pants can make you hotter because you can’t sweat freely, but you wear it anyway in order to avoid severe sunburn (skin blistering and peeling, feeling sick). Humans are pretty good at cooling themselves, but only if they have copious amounts of water. Dehydration is the biggest problem- the dry hot air sucks it out of you and once you’re low on water you can’t cool yourself and you die fairly rapidly. Most people here don’t even own umbrellas suggesting they aren’t very useful; however, if you can’t find any other shelter, I suppose huddling under some makeshift umbrella (NOT carrying it around) during the heat of the day might be helpful.
Another fun thing about deserts is they cool down rapidly overnight, so someone who decides to wear skimpy clothing and gets stranded might find themselves swinging between 100+ degrees in the day and 50 degrees at night. Fifty-ish degree weather is, oddly, a common temperature for unprepared people to die from hypothermia. If you get stranded in a desert in shorts and a t-shirt you can get extremely sunburned and dehydrated during the day and then die from hypothermia during the night.
Those shiny silver heat-reflective blankets they sell are a good thing to carry in your car. If you get stranded in a desert, string it up as a shelter and hide under it during the day and wrap it around you at night and STAY NEAR YOUR CAR. Cars are much easier to find than disoriented people wandering around in circles. It’s also a good idea to carry containers of water in your car.
You know how hard it is to build an umbrella? All those hinges and that little push-button lock thingy?
And where are you gonna come up with all the “Hello Kitty” water-proof fabric? 
You don’t need an umbrella in the desert, it hardly ever rains there.
That second picture is wrong for several reason- it’s a group of office workers/teachers/students coming outside from their air-conditioned office, and next they are not wearing hats due to that and due to their picture being taken.
And that second one is why you dont rely on movies, since the directors likely wants hats off but your hat is critical in the desert.
We also see this also in film & TV where Knights are shown fighting wearing full armor but no helmet- whereas the helmet is* the* most critical piece of armor.
Sunshades/parasols can be useful in a desert area with little wind. This is not so common.
Far easier and effective to find a shady spot to sleep/nap during the day and travel at night. I grew up too poor to afford air conditioned cars, so we did this a few times when we had to cross a desert in the summer. Police tend to leave you be in a park or rest area during the day.
Sure. When I spent two months in India I bought a pretty parasol in white and pink and carried it everywhere.
You don’t need an umbrella. You just need to carry a car door. When it gets too hot, just roll down the window.
Ok. It’s an old joke. I’ll leave now.
Frankly, in a desert, I’d try to travel at night and find/craft some shade for the day time to hunker down in.
I did NOT claim that “people don’t need an umrella because they wear shirts and a t-short.” (By the way, you can’t even spell very well.) I did NOT say that “desert people don’t need an umbrella because they tend to dress like someone wearing robes.” I said that many people who live in the desert tend to wear clothes that cover and protect them from the sun.
You posted 4 pictures as examples. The second picture shows a man who is completely covered, including a jacket and a hat. The third picture shows several people, the majority of whom are wearing jackets, hats, or both. The fourth picture shows several people, some of whom are indeed wearing short sleeves, but the clear majority are completely covered up.
I repeat-- you substantiated my point!!!
You very, very badly need a remedial course in Reading Comprehension 101.
Ok, which idiot said that you can wear shorts and tee shirts in a desert? Because, if you do, that is a good way of getting some very very very bad sun burn.
As a rule of the thumb, wearing shorts, and half sleeves/sleeveless is better for cooling for about 25-35 C (about 75-95 F). Above that, you want to wear long loose clothing to protect from the sun and to provide some circulation of air across your body.
Nor are modern desert dwellers much good in seeing what you need in a survival situation… Last year I spent some time working in the desert. My biggest problem was feeling cold all the time, since the air conditioning in the offices, malls, homes and cars was always cranked up. I was wearing a business suit most of the time, not something you could have done smack in the middle. of the day.
And who put up a picture of the Mongolian Steppe (the place that makes Russia in the winter look like Spain) and called that a desert?
Moderator Warning
Flyer, insults are not permitted in General Questions. This is an official warning. Do not do this again. Also, there is no need for the large bold font in your posts.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I was going to continue the line of stating that what you actually want is a parasol, but all the reference places say a parasol is a kind of umbrella, so, meh. I still think it’s much more accurate to call an item that’s shading you from the sun a parasol, even if it’s exactly the same piece of equipment that you’ve used as a rain umbrella. However, parasols have different design considerations, in that they are more likely to be light colored so as to reflect the sun (whereas a rain umbrella’s coloring is generally not relevant), and don’t need to be waterproof, which can lighten them a bit.
“Umbra” is latin for “shadow”, so “umbrella” means “little shadow”.
Agreed that in modern English usage umbrella usually means something to protect you from the rain, but we often use umbrella to also mean something to protect you from the sun. Beach umbrellas are a perfect example.
Well, it gets little rainfall, which make it and even Antarctica technically a type of desert. But obviously not the sort we are discussing here.
Interesting.