Juan Fernando Valdez
IG: Pulgaboy_V
Juan Fernando Valdez is a first-generation Mexican-American apparel designer and photographer from San Francisco.
Trained in menswear design at the Academy of Art University and a self-taught photographer, he constantly tries to create work that brings out the best in his community. Navigating Mexican and American identities plus his Duranguense and Oaxaqueño roots has influenced his way of creating and telling stories. For the last 10 years, Juan has worked for global brands like Dockers and Levi’s, where he presently leads capsule collections and men’s fashion denim.
Title: Los Caminos
Materials: Dickies Shirt, Embroidery Thread And Glass Bugle Beads
Dimensions: 37” x 20”
Los Caminos is inspired by the well known song penned by Omar Geles. Juan's father migrated from Durango Mexico and did factory work for most of his life. He also had a passion for singing and playing music with his friends or home, where he taught Juan and his siblings to play instruments to accompany him.
The song reflects on the realization that our parents worked, suffered, and lost a lot to create the lives we have, today, and how our strongest motivator in life is to provide and pay them back in gratitude. Los Picachos de Durango is a fictitious band to acknowledge his fathers dreams to be in a musical group. It is embroidered using chainstitch embroidery and tambour beading techniques to create an embellished shirt commonly worn by Mexican bands to perform. The garment is a typical work shirt that Juan most frequently saw his father in, merging the reality with the dream.