Some collaborations dress a product. This one tells a story. Our new limited edition BLUNT x Adam Lester Metro trades the ordinary grey sky for one soaked in the pinks and oranges of dawn, hand-painted by one of Australia's most distinctive contemporary artists.
It is a canopy built not as decoration, but as a portrait of a slower pace of life: first-light walks, evening surf sessions, fresh-caught seafood, and the native flora and fauna that give the shoreline its character. Six panels, six glimpses, one very good morning.
Adam Lester has spent a career paying attention to the things most of us walk past. Born in Melbourne in 1971 and now based in Brisbane, his practice investigates the relationships between people, places and objects, blending anachronism, nostalgia and humour into vibrant, kinetic visual assemblages. Street signs, quiet bar scenes, the small overlooked details that carry memory and longing - Lester treats them as worth recording. Drawing on pop culture, travel and the poetry of the everyday, his work moves fluidly between curiosity and optimism. It is a sensibility that made him a natural fit for an object designed to be used, carried and lived with rather than hung on a wall.
The original artwork was rendered first in acrylic and ink on traditional canvas, then cut and reconfigured across the Metro's six panels. Each angle reveals a distinct fragment of the narrative. Rather than resolving into a single fixed image, the canopy unfolds as a montage of figurative and symbolic imagery that changes as you walk, tilt and turn. Shells, starfish, coral, surf and shoreline surface in sun-warmed pinks and oranges, an ode to laid-back coastal living filtered through Lester's bold and expressive hand.
“There is no single point of view of an artwork on an umbrella. So it became more a case of telling a little story via a montage of images, creating a more free association of motifs across the umbrella”
Quote by|Adam Lester
Five minutes with Adam Lester
We sat down with the artist to talk sunrise, studios and the strange geometry of painting for six panels at once.
In your own words, tell us about the BLUNT x Adam Lester collaboration.
"I saw the chance to collaborate with BLUNT as a fun way of re-contextualising my work into an interesting new format."
Where did you draw inspiration from?
"The inspiration really are subjects and motifs I tend to be drawn to naturally. I guess I really appreciate the natural beauty and opportunities for leisure that Australia has on offer and it manifests in a lot of my work."
How did designing the umbrella differ from your typical creative process?
"Well the interesting thing is, there is no single point of view of an artwork on an umbrella. So, in designing the artwork, it became more a case of telling a little story via a montage of images, creating a more free association of motifs across the umbrella."
What mediums did you use for this design?
"I designed most of the umbrella artwork on a traditional canvas with acrylic paints and ink and then cut it up so that the six panels could be reconfigured in a number of options for the BLUNT design team to work with."
What influences or inspires your style?
"My influences change with the seasons, but I'd say travelling is the biggest inspiration for my work."
Where do you normally create?
"My studio is attached to my house, but I guess I absorb ideas wherever I am, then take them back and try to realise them."
Lester has collaborated widely across fashion, design, music and theatre, with names including Alémais, Third Drawer Down, Row Faster George, Print Room Editions and Green Beacon Brewery, alongside murals for government and private clients in Australia and Europe.
This one asked something different again: a discipline governed by mechanics, movement and daily ritual rather than the flat plane of fabric or wall. An umbrella is never viewed straight on. It is opened in a hurry, carried at an angle, spun to shake off the rain. The design had to work in motion, which is precisely what makes it feel alive. Guided by the movement and spontaneity of daily life, the result is a meditation on freedom, exploration and the pleasure of the ordinary morning.
Art is only half of it. The BLUNT Metro is our iconic compact umbrella, engineered with our patented radial tension system that distributes force evenly across the frame to create a high-performing, aerodynamic structure built to resist inversion in strong winds. Collapsible and lightweight, it slips into a bag without a second thought. As the world's first B Corp certified umbrella brand, we build every BLUNT to be modular and repairable, because the most sustainable umbrella is the one you never need to replace. Which is rather the point of putting an original artwork on it.
“This limited edition design brings together the very best of Australian coastal life and culture in a gorgeous celebration of early morning sunrise hues. The art depicted on the canopy is so warming and nostalgic for me, growing up on Sydney's Northern Beaches.”
Quote by|Fee Cortis, Head of Marketing, BLUNT Umbrellas
Vibrant, immersive and unmistakably personal, the BLUNT Metro x Adam Lester is a collectible union of art, storytelling and engineered design. A practical object made collectible, and a small daily reminder that the weather is only ever half the story.
You can see more of Adam's work at Piermarq Gallery in Sydney, or on Instagram at @adslester.
