The Milanese Man Purse

The Milanese Man Purse

Two “fashion” trends persist for men around here: orange-colored pants and the Milanese “man purse”, a sleeker, chic-er version of the multi-pocketed, safari vest. U.S. travel outfitters sell them as “travel vests”, but here in Milano, they are daily wear for the 60-80 set. Now that winter has gone, these functional garments have come out of the closets to populate the streets.

Yes, the term “man purse” has been used to describe the over-the-shoulder messenger bag and all its variations in which men carry cell phones, keys, PDAs, cameras, laptops, chargers, files, books and everything else they’re tethered to for the day. But man-purse-as-vest distributes the load, leaving men hands-free yet porting all of their necessaries.

As seen around Milano, the man purse vest comes in many colors, in both light and heavy weight fabrics, with zippered, buttoned or snapped pockets. They are either bulky or streamline, pared-down-basic or over-pocketed.

Along the Naviglio Grande on Sunday, after a long day at the antiques market, I stepped into an osteria for a bite to eat. I perched at a window table and set my camera for stealth photography of the steady parade of men in vests. It was a concentrated show of vest styles and their wearers. These surreptitious photos joined those that I began shooting last summer.

Who started this trend? When, where and how did this begin? Does it extend throughout Italy, or only here in the north? Will it go away any time soon? (Doubtful.)

Double jackpot! Man Purse plus orange (or yellow) pants! Yes!
(I’d like to see the yellow vest with the orange pants.)

Tall Corn and an Alpine Arc

The corn stalks are more than knee-high. The rapeseed has been harvested and the poppies cut along with it. Workers are driving tractors along the canal, using flail-choppers to cut the meter-high grass and weeds.

There’s a firm breeze on this 80 degree day and the sky is bright blue. The air is clear enough to reveal the Alps forming their broad arc of one third of the horizon. That always impresses me: looking up from my bike and seeing the Alps in the distance. What a sight, and the stuff of dreams.

300-Year-Old Pages

300-Year-Old Pages

Another day at the Antiques Market along the Naviglio Grande. Summer is in full swing and tourists have found this hot spot. It’s “the” place to be on the last Sunday of the month for anyone wanting a very diverse selection of some pretty choice items. “Antique” in Italy covers a broader range than “antique” in the U.S.!

The sellers know full well what they’ve got and the high demand for what they’re offering and they’re not giving any of it away for cheap! Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing there. I have no budget for this stuff! But I remind myself that there’s value in simply SEEING it. Tools and instruments. A world atlas from the 1700s. Household goods and fixtures. Old nuns’ handwritten devotional cards in hand-stitched envelopes. Embroidered linens. Letterpress printed prayerbooks of handmade paper bound in hide. Maps and etchings of former cityscapes. The historical reference alone makes it worth spending a day gently handling 300-year-old book pages.

I find the very old and the very curious. (A Lamborghini wooden rowing machine?!) I look around for hours until I’m mentally saturated and physically hungry, unable to really appreciate any more. By then I’m going home with a few little trinkets that are affordable and packable, and a mind full of imagery I hope to never forget.

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At right (below) are leather-working knives.

Make Like a Sculpture

Make Like a Sculpture

What to do when the temperature is in the 80s on a Saturday afternoon, post jet-lag? Go for a bike ride with a cyclist friend, start along the canal, ride through the farmland to a little lake, get and fix a flat tire and make like a sculpture.

Cyclist Emilio and I rode out west of Assago (south of Milano) to the Villaggio Santa Maria. They have a man-made lake, a pool, a path around the lake shore, and grass to lounge on. It was a nice afternoon of chatting on winding farm roads, climbing overpasses, and seeing new bike routes.

Grazie, Emilio.

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Sometimes when I meet people here, I tell them my name is “Maria”. They can handle that. Or I do tell them my name is Maureen, and that “Maureen” is like “Maria” in that they both mean “Mary”.

Rapeseed & Red Poppies

Rapeseed & Red Poppies

My flight arrived yesterday evening, followed by a train ride into the city. I caught a cab and loved the winding ride through the tight streets. Summer had arrived. It was warm. People were out strolling and the sidewalk seating was filled with people enjoying their aperitivi with friends. The whole mood had shifted in two weeks! (Although I was told that the Milanese just came off a spell of rain while I was enjoying sunshine in Seattle.)

Today, less than 24 hours after returning, I was riding my bike along the canal under a sunny sky and a low-80s afternoon. I rode for more than 2 hours and smelled wild rose, jasmine, gardenia… and some plant whose scent approximates the combination of sweat and urine.

Just 15 minutes south of Milano by bike, I was enjoying the sight of bright yellow fields of rapeseed (canola) speckled red with poppies. The stuff of masters’ paintings. Beautiful.

The cottonwood fluff was so thick that I had to hold my breath as I rode through certain areas. The pathside has become downy-soft.

As I had seen both flying into Milano and on my ride, the rice paddies are being flooded and reflect the blue of the sky above. (Who would think that Milano is surrounded by rice paddies?!)

I like the summary that this ground-level billboard provides, illustrating signature Italian food products. “Giant in quality. Small in price.”

There’s a new section of bike path whose “official” opening every cyclist has been waiting months for. They long ago gave up on waiting and simply ride around the barricades. The problem is the two underpasses that were built below the level of the canal and have been flooded all winter and spring. Today, though, they were clear of water and allowed me to keep riding without risking my life in the alternate: a busy roundabout ON A BIKE! I went further today than I normally do, almost to the town of Pavia.

This collection of signs amused me. The drainage ditch and small road behind are closed. Fishing is forbidden, as is harvesting mushrooms. What are they thinking? Such a sign TELLS me that this is a hot spot for gathering mushrooms. It gives a person reason to cross over and start hunting! (Don’t they know you should always keep your mushroom spots SECRET?!)

This poor snake didn’t make it, but the salamander I saw at the last second did. I wonder what kind of snake it is…

A sculptor has taken over this old hydraulic plant and has built a workshop (low, with the blue trim) and sculpture garden, right next to one of the canal’s many locks. One of these days I’ll have to stop and chat with him.

It pleases me to have nearly completed one year on the Naviglio Pavese Canal, with its seasonal changes. It holds something different for me each time I roll along at its side and I continue to marvel and revel. I find myself singing and speaking Italian to myself. (Uh oh. Scary.) And I certainly find myself smiling.

Fast on the Canal

Fast on the Canal

The fence joints along the canal were interesting to Dad, so I had stopped to take some detail shots. One of the cyclists, Emilio, stopped to ask if I needed any help. I explained about the fence, then we stood at the canalside and continued chatting for 20 minutes or so. On this cloudy day, we covered everything under the sun.

“Do you want to ride together for a while?”, he asked.
“Sure!”

Courteously, he seemed to be letting me set the pace, so I picked it up, pushed it and we rode hard for much of the way. “Wow!”, he said. He was surprised by the pace I could keep, which he clocked at 35 kph (almost 22 mph).

What fun! Nice to have a cycling companion.
We may ride together again another day.

Grazie, Emilio! Molto piacere.

This is what 53 looks like in Italy:

Luigi’s Garden

Luigi’s Garden

There’s a farm field along the canal, across from the Zibido Cemetery, that has piled up a rank-smelling mound of rotting straw and organic matter. Luigi sees it as prime compost for his garden and is hauling it home one bucketful at a time.

As I was riding along, I didn’t recognize him at first. Since the weather has gotten warmer, Luigi’s many-times-mended clothes have gotten more summery. (He was in a heavy jacket the last time I saw him.) As we stood there talking, I noticed that at some point in years past, he’s customized his shirt. The collar’s been removed, and careful stitches finish that edge.

We had a nice chat. Luigi told me that he grows green beans, chicory, potatoes, tomatoes, salad greens and a little bit of everything else in his garden. We talked some more about his 70-year-old bike, and some of the long-time Italian bicycle brands: Bianchi, Silvestrini, Rossignoli. Any brand markings on his bike have long since yielded to the rusty patina.

Luigi reached out and shook my hand. We said our “arrivederci” and look forward to our next conversation along the canal.

Canal Flea-Market Purchases

Canal Flea-Market Purchases

The original plan was to head to Firenze for the day (!), but I caught a short, quick cold Friday night and couldn’t dare think of hopping on the train this morning. (I could hardly get out of bed!) After eventually getting up-and-at-em, I dragged myself up to the Naviglio Grande, knowing they were having their monthly Antiques Market. “OK, fine. I’ll go there instead.”

Glad I did! I found some wonderful things. I’m enthralled with old penmanship and typography, fabric and sewing notions, curious boxes and just plain cool things. Here’s my day’s assortment:

Old post cards, religious medals and pen nibs.

I selected a pencil drawing from 1888, an old travel journal from 1961, report cards from 1907+, a cheese sign, decorative cloth tape, “money substitute papers” from the Comune di Varese from 1926 and some hat forms from Genova.

A bundle of 100-year-old postcards and a Superman school journal from 1980 were included in my day’s treasures. (1980 was 30 years ago! Wow.)

Antiques Along the Grand Canal

Antiques Along the Grand Canal

On the last Sunday of the month, one can browse Antiques and Flea-Market-Finds for as far as the eye can see (2 kilometers), on both sides of  the Naviglio Grande, the Grand Canal. (This canal intersects with the Naviglio Pavese, the one I ride my bike along.)

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There is still some limited boat traffic along the canal when they’ve let the water in.

The antique sellers’ stalls also stretch far out into the side streets that branch off of the canal.

Linens? Oh yes. I find plenty. And they’re gorgeous. And the sellers know what they have and charge prices accordingly. There are few, if any, “steals” here. But the high quality linen and cotton, with the embroidery and open-work stitching, are superb examples of the old European linens. (I would love to buy them all up… but for what?)

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Beautiful, finely-crafted instruments of all sorts! The asking price of this Astrolabe was 700 Euro. (Cough, cough. Roughly $1000 right now.) But it was lovely.

I don’t even know what this Parisian instrument is.

These look like porcelain portraits of Mao and his family.

An interesting assortment of portraits.

It is startling to me how often I see the American flag, or some representation of it.

Isn’t this luggage out of the stereotypical “Italian Holiday Travel Movie”?

The dog matches the upholstery. I missed him at first.

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Smile. I’m on Candid Camera (for my Seester.)

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This guy sold horse figures of every sort.

I had been walking around for hours and stumbled upon some finds. “How much for this group of papers and books?” “50 Euro.” “How about 40?” How about 45 and you let me buy you a drink.” I laughed. It caught me completely by surprise. I bought the papers and books for 45 Euro and Graziano and I stepped 10 feet across the cobblestone and had a glass of cold white wine at a Sushi Bar on a hot afternoon and talked for a little while. So funny. But it was a pleasant and charming break.

Cool hat box. (Cool typography.)

As the warm afternoon waned, the cafés started to fill with people enjoying the Milanese aperitivo. The musicians showed up in the old Vicolo dei Lavandai, the washing station of the 19th century where women gathered to scour their clothes against washboard stones as their wash water flowed off into the canal.

Who’da thought I’d see this?! Wait! I should have bought the one a few issues back: Settembre 1957!

Packing up to go home, this man still wore hat, bow tie and white coat as he packed his lamps into a salami box.

So now, do you have an idea of what’s for sale at an Italian Antique/Flea Market?

Luigi Gathers Wood

Luigi Gathers Wood

Running parallel to the Naviglio Pavese canal, between the bike path and the highway, is a drainage ditch overgrown by a tangle of brush and trees in every state of growth or death. Luigi knows this. The 82-year-old man rides his 70-year-old bike along the canal and stops to cut deadwood.

Today he worked on one particularly good dead tree, much like an alder, with plenty of big wood. Knuckles bloodied from hard work in the brush, Luigi spent his time gathering the arm-sized and smaller sticks. With his bow saw, he made half cuts in the wood, then cracked the branches across his knee to break them.

His bike is what stopped me. I don’t think I’ve seen a bike so uniformly coated with such a mist of rust from end-to-end. Think about it. He’s been riding this same bike since he was 12. It has only one speed: however fast his legs are capable of that day.

Luigi and I chatted for a little while, and he allowed me to take a few photos as we talked and he worked. I didn’t understand everything he said, but we enjoyed the meeting. I said goodbye, then walked back to my bike 20 feet away while Luigi finished loading his bike. Then I heard the bike fall and the wood tumble. It had all been out of balance and spilled.

I walked back, and held the bike for Luigi while he reloaded the wood. He excused himself, wanting me to be out of the way as he swiftly raised his curved machete, and thrust the tip down into one of the larger logs for the ride home. He bound it all with heavy string that stretched across the bow saw blade laying flat on top of the woodpile. (In my mind, I questioned that, but who am I to tell him how to tie down his firewood!?) He pushed his bike to the other side of the trail where there’s a canalside railing. I didn’t quite understand what he was explaining, but I soon understood by watching him.

Luigi’s legs are bad. He propped himself and his bike against the railing. I then held the bike while he used his hands to lift his right leg up and over the top bar. He asked me if anyone was approaching from behind, and I steadied him on his bike as he propelled himself into motion. I ran ahead to make sure that my own bike was well out of his way.

As I followed along behind him, I wondered how in the world he was going to stop where the path meets the road up ahead. And how was he going to get started again?! I too stopped at the path end, and Luigi was stalled there, half-straddling his bike. Another cyclist stopped to offer help. I finally realized that Luigi wanted me to hold the bike still while he manually lifted his leg off. He walked the bike to the crosswalk, and declined any further assistance. I watched him as he walked his dear old bike and his load of wood across the street and down a narrow alley toward home.

He’ll be back tomorrow for the logs.

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It doesn’t matter what kind of day I’m having, or what I’m preoccupied with, but a brief, chance encounter like this with Luigi leaves me smiling and bright. These are the moments they don’t advertise in the travel brochures, but they are the highlights of my time here.