I have carried a purse on one shoulder for forty-five years. This is the first bag I have ever written a letter about.
I have carried a purse on one shoulder for forty-five years. This is the first bag I have ever written a letter about.
Six things I have noticed since a day at the zoo with my grandbabies, from a woman who spent most of her life with one hand on her purse strap and the other one full.
Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read
Let me tell you who is talking before I tell you anything else. I am Peggy, I am 63, and I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband Frank. A couple of times a year I load two of my grandbabies into the car and drive them down to the San Antonio Zoo for the day, my grandson, who is five, and his little sister, who is three and will not be carried and will not be put in a stroller either. Anybody who has done a zoo with a three-year-old knows you need both hands and a third one besides.
The bag I am writing about is a backpack, which I never thought I would say at my age. It is the Soleil, from Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women like us for a few years now. It has a big sunflower and monarch butterflies printed on a bright blue sky, and plain black everywhere else. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I first saw it on another grandmother, standing ahead of us at the flamingos. She had a little boy by one hand and a little girl by the other, and that sunflower bag sitting square on her back like it had grown there. I lost her at the giraffes and found her again at the reptile house, still with both hands full of children and not once reaching round for a strap. Meanwhile I had my purse sliding down my arm, a sippy cup in my coat pocket and my car keys somewhere I could not find. By lunchtime I had decided I was going to ask her. So at the snack benches, while both our grandbabies were busy with their corn dogs, I asked her, plainly. Her name is Loretta, she is about seventy, and she drives in from Spring Branch. She laughed and said, “Honey, I gave up on purses at the zoo years ago. This is the only bag I take anywhere now.” Read on.
Mine, on our next trip down. My grandson took it, and I asked him to leave my head out of it, which he thought was the funniest thing he had ever heard.
Here is what forty-five years of carrying a purse has taught me. A woman my age gets offered two kinds of bag. There are the pretty ones, the shoulder bags and the handbags, which look lovely on the way in and spend the whole day sliding off your shoulder into the crook of your elbow. And there are the practical ones, the black nylon backpacks and the fanny packs, which make you look like you are about to hike the Appalachian Trail. So you carry the pretty one, you hitch it back up four hundred times a day, and you tell yourself that is just how it goes.
I had never once owned a bag that left both my hands free and still looked like I had chosen it on purpose.
The afternoon they came. Yes, there are two. I will get to the second one.
I ordered the Soleil that same afternoon, sitting in the car in the zoo parking lot while the two of them slept in the back, and I have carried it more in these few weeks than I carried my last purse all summer. Going by those weeks, it comes down to six things, and I will give them to you plainly.
The print is the thing people stop you for
This is what caught my eye at the flamingos. The whole front of the bag is one big printed picture. Mine is a bright blue sky with white clouds, two orange monarch butterflies up top, a sunflower the size of a dinner plate and a pink and blue butterfly down in the corner. Every October the monarchs come through San Antonio on their way south, and the first time I wore it a little boy at the flamingo fence pointed at my back and told his mama I had the same ones. The rest of the bag is plain black, so the picture does all the talking. Women have asked me about it in the grocery store, at church and in line at the pharmacy, and I am not a woman who usually gets asked about her bag.
I get stopped about this bag everywhere I go. It is the happiest thing I own and it goes with everything because everything else is black.
Gloria H., HelotesTwo straps, so both hands are free
The bag has two shoulder straps, and the boutique says they spread the weight evenly so you can carry it comfortably all day. That matched my day at the zoo. The weight sat even across my back instead of pulling on one shoulder, it did not slide, and I did not touch it from the parking lot to the gift shop. That left me one hand for my grandson and one for his sister, which is the only way I would recommend doing a zoo with a three-year-old.
The camper one, at the rail by the big lawn. Both hands on the rail for once, because both hands were free.
I carried a shoulder bag for thirty years and my right shoulder let me know it. Two straps and both hands free. I should have done this years ago.
Darla M., BulverdeIt holds a real day’s worth of things
It measures about 11 inches across and 15 and a half inches tall, and the boutique says there is room for your wallet, your phone, your keys, a book and a bottle of water. I can tell you that is exactly what I had in mine, plus two small apples, a pack of wipes and a little sweater for the three-year-old, who was cold for about four minutes in the reptile house. It did not look stuffed and I could still find everything in it.
The night before the zoo. All of that went in, with room left for a little sweater.
Fits my wallet, my phone, my reading glasses, a paperback and a water bottle with room to spare. It is my everyday bag now.
Patsy W., CiboloOne zipper, and everything stays put
There is one zipper that runs around the top and down the sides, and that is it. No flaps, no buckles, no little clips to fight with when you have a child pulling on your other arm. You zip it shut in the morning and your things stay inside it until you open it again. At my age I have learned that every extra pocket is just one more place to lose my keys, so I count that as a blessing.
No buckles, no clasps, just one zipper. I can open it and close it without taking my reading glasses out.
Norma G., La VerniaThe little loop on top earns its keep
Right at the top there is a short loop to grab it by, and I use it more than I ever expected. I grab it off the back seat by that loop, I hang it on the back of a chair at lunch, and when I get home it goes up on the hook by the back door, where it waits for the next time. The camper one hangs right next to it now.
Where the camper one lives, next to my sun hat. It looks like every October Frank and I have ever spent at a state park.
I hang mine on the hook by the door by that little top loop and it is the first thing I grab on the way out. My grandkids call it Grandma’s picture bag.
Bobbie S., PoteetIt goes everywhere, and there are twenty-one pictures to choose from
I bought it for the zoo, and I have since carried it to the farmers market, to the doctor, on a day trip to Fredericksburg with my sister Sue and to the grocery store on a Tuesday. The boutique says it is for everyday, shopping, travel and days out, and that has been my experience. It comes in one size, and there are twenty-one different prints, everything from sunflowers and poppies to a starry night, butterflies and a little camper by a campfire. I have since gone back for the camper one, the same as Loretta, who has both. Frank asked what was wrong with the sunflower one. Nothing, I told him. That is the point.
Bought the sunflower one for a trip and came home and ordered the camper one for my sister. We wear them out together and people think we planned it.
Wanda J., DevineThe Soleil, against the bags in my closet
You can keep carrying the shoulder bag and hitching it back up all day, like I did for forty-five years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
All the weight on one shoulder
Slides down your arm all day
One hand always holding the strap
Plain black or brown, every time
Keys lost in the bottom of it
Two straps that spread the weight evenly
Sits square on your back all day
Both hands free
A whole picture on the front people ask about
One zipper, room for a real day
About the price
The Soleil is $50.95. It was $102.00. I will be honest, when I saw that I read the whole page twice looking for the catch. I have not found one. It came with free shipping, it was the bag in the pictures, and it has been on my back most days since. So has the camper one.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these come in small runs, and the most popular pictures go first. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have paid more than $102.00 for purses that spent their lives on a closet shelf, so $50.95 for the bag I reach for every morning was an easy yes.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If you have spent your life with one hand on a purse strap, and you would like a bag that leaves both hands free and still looks like you chose it because you liked it, this is where I would start. Take a look before the picture you want sells through, because once this stock is gone, it is gone. And if you are ever at the San Antonio Zoo on a weekday morning and you see two grandmothers with sunflowers on their backs, each holding two little hands at the flamingos, one of them is Loretta, and the other one is me.
Peggy
THE PRINTED BACKPACK COLLECTION
- A whole printed picture on the front, 21 to choose from
- Two shoulder straps that spread the weight evenly
- Room for wallet, phone, keys, a book and water
- One zipper closure, handy loop on top
- About 11 x 4.3 x 15.4 inches, one size
- Free shipping
Fall sale on now, half off. Once this stock is gone, it is gone.