Meet the alumni who created the Shibumi Shade

Shibumi Shades are best known for their interactions with the sun, but one of their biggest moments came in 2016, in total darkness.

“We finished sewing the first prototype around midnight at the beach, and we were so excited we decided we wanted to go straight out to the ocean and try it,” said Scott Barnes ’12, a co-founder of Shibumi Shades. “We had our phone lights on to try to see, and when we set it up, we could instantly tell. It was flying at night, and we could hear it above us, and we were just so amazed by that moment of like, ‘Wow, this can actually work.’”

Scott Barnes, along with his older brother, Dane Barnes ’09, and their friend, Alex Slater ’09, had finally solved a problem that had vexed them for years: how to create a shady canopy for the beach that wasn’t hard to set up and wouldn’t blow away in the ever-present winds.

“We all grew up going to the beach, and so we had the similar experiences of umbrellas and tents being not very fun to use,” said Slater, also a Shibumi Shades co-founder.

Slater and the Barnes brothers designed a solid frame attached to a piece of fabric, suspended in the air by the wind — like a windsock at an airport — that provided quick, easy and dependable shade. The shade was instantly noticed by fellow vacationers.

“Beachgoers would walk up to us and say, ‘What is this? And where’d you get it? Will you make us one?’ At first we said, ‘No,’ but eventually we said, ‘Yes,’” said Dane Barnes.

In 2016, their first year of saying “yes,” Slater and the Barneses made 32 shades, sewing and assembling each one themselves. By 2019, Shibumi Shades were so popular that they quit their full-time jobs to focus on their new enterprise.

“Since 2016, we think we’ve sold somewhere over 300,000 shades,” Slater said. “So best we can estimate, Shibumi Shades have made it to probably 800 beaches around the world.”

Though Shibumi Shades are now global, their origin has strong ties to Carolina.

The company’s name comes from the Shibumi Apartments off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Chapel Hill, where the co-founders lived as Carolina students.

“Carolina was central to the Shibumi story — everything from the name of our company to staying in touch with professors who give us advice, when we have roadblocks,” Scott Barnes said.

Shibumi is also a Japanese design concept that relates to simplicity, a fundamental feature of Shibumi Shades. Each shade consists of a folding frame of tent poles and a fabric canopy, carried in a small over-the-shoulder storage sack that doubles as a sandbag to help keep the shade in place once it’s set up.

“When you’re at the beach, you really want something that you can set up in a minute and then be able to spend the rest of the day relaxing,” Scott Barnes said. “That’s our design direction for everything that we make.”

Since their launch, Shibumi Shades have all featured a teal and blue canopy to represent the close-up and far away waters of the ocean. But that single color approach is changing.

“Every year we try to improve the product and make refinements,” said Dane Barnes. “Shibumi Shades has launched some new colors, by popular demand, and also, we’re excited that we just launched the Shibumi beach chair.”

Among the new color combinations are blue and orange, purple and gold, and blue and red. How about a Carolina Blue and White Shibumi Shade?

“I met the chancellor recently, and he asked me the same question,” Dane Barnes said. “So we are thinking about it.”