Carballo (La Fábrica de Paraguas)

Paraguas Carballo traces to Nogueira de Ramuín, a town in Galicia's Ribeira Sacra where two traditional trades ran in the same family: one grandfather was an afilador (knife-grinder), the other a paragüero (umbrella-mender). In 1952 Rogelio and Teresa, the founders, brought that trade to A Coruña, taking over the ground floor of an old wooden house on Panaderas street as shop and workshop. As the business grew, family members José Manuel, Camilo and Rogelio bought a dedicated factory on Torre street, where the workshop still stands today under third-generation owner David Lama Carballo and his siblings Rogelio and Teresa.

About 5,000 umbrellas a year are still made in-house at the Torre street workshop — maple handles, fiberglass or solid steel ribs, and Italian waterproofed polyester canopies, with bamboo-root handles on the higher-end pieces. Carballo also repairs umbrellas and distributes both its own production and other brands across northern Spain, from Asturias and Cantabria through the Basque Country, Navarra and northern Castile-León, from two retail points in A Coruña.

Owner David Lama has noted a recent uptick in demand for higher-quality, longer-lasting umbrellas — people, he says, are tired of throwing cheap ones away — a trend that plays directly to a workshop still cutting and assembling by hand.