No Juan Knows
I have this shoulder bag for sale on my website. It’s something I’ve always thought was likely from the later part of the 70s, but I’ve never really known for sure. That’s the way it is with vintage. If you don’t have a time machine, you can’t always get a firm and definitive date on something. Sometimes, you can hit dates right on the head by finding an ad or information about a particular company or designer, but more often things are instinctual or based on obvious visual cues, construction techniques, or labels. It’s not easy to date things if you don’t have a strong sense of fashion history, that’s for sure. (A metal zipper does not a vintage dress make.) Research can be exciting, but also mystifying and frustrating at times.
Not long ago, my friend Maija gave me this Columbian coffee advertisement. She found it in a fairly recent issue of Saveur magazine.
Check out Juan Valdez. He’s wearing my bag. (I drew a pink arrow in the ad so that you could spot it.) It’s hard for me to imagine why Juan might need a bag like this one. I am pretty sure a stylist decided that it looked good in the photo. It’s possible that there’s some accuracy in Juan’s get-up since the bag is foreign made. The maker’s mark is something like, “guarnieri jerico dario agudelo.” (Google those words and the results are seemingly useless for our purposes.)
This bag has four compartments or pockets inside. I like to think of it as a mini-messenger bag. From my point of view, it looks fashion-y and not particularly metrosexual. Why does Juan have this purse? I don’t know that many men (okay, I know none) who’d carry it. In the case of Mr. Valdez who’s picking coffee beans, I can’t imagine how this bag would be practical. Maybe you know someone who is a coffee bean picker who carries one of these bags. If so, what does he carry in it? (Also, what is he wearing on his feet?)
I have a different plan for this bag. It’s carried by a preppy woman with a bit of a punk-ish edge. She keeps the bag in the quilted saddlebag on her Chanel bike. I devised this outfit for a Fall bike ride with the help of the very fun website called Polyvore. Oh, and if you’re the lady bicycling around town in this little fantasy, please be sure to support independent coffee shops when you stop for your morning cuppa. And lock your bike–even if it’s not a Chanel bike.
I'm Holly, the author of Hollygab. I write about vintage clothing, fashion, interior design, shopping, other pressing matters. Many Hollygab musings have to do with purging my obsessions. 
That’s where Juan keeps his iPhone so he can phone his agent (and keep up with your blog) while he’s checking his crop on the hillside with Muriel, his mule. Not metrosexual, huh? Looks like he presses his own chinos.
Those aren’t chinos. They’re performance pleat Dockers with the stain resist.
Too funny, Ms.Fairbanks.
I think you’re right. He is a lot more metrosexual than I initially believed. In fact…what’s that scarf/shawl thingy & is that a skirt or an apron or is he just happy to be carrying that bag?
And are those white socks? Or little fluffy slippers? What the heck is he doing in the mountains in slippers? Juan needs to fire his stylist!