Hi longtime friends!
I’m posting this as a lament to my Ostrich Hermes Sac a Depeches that was utterly devastated by a botched restoration.
I sent what was a stunning bag to an esteemed Hermes leather “guru” to try to refurbish my bag to its natural state (natural ostrich). I regret not asking for my treasure back when the bag looked even worse in the pictures she sent me after “degreasing.” She insisted that she alone had the skill and resources to work on this precious skin / potentially do some color work—work she said Hermes refuses to do and businesses like “Leather Surgeons” (LS) do by spray painting bags. I’ve since found out from LS founder that they do not “spray paint” bags, nonetheless, learn from my mistake and do not send your bags anywhere other than the Hermes spa.
This “guru” called me to suggest moving the color route. I felt like I was being upsold, but respected her reputation. She did a color test on a separate swatch of ostrich and told me that if we were to proceed with color, green would be the preferred route because of yellow undertones in the blue. She said that the green would be translucent and existing staining would still show through, but anything opaque would “suffocate” the skin. Translucency = a healthy skin and a sign of properly done color work. She said the darker we went, the better hidden it would be. With much to process, I explicitly asked for more time to decide how I wanted to proceed.
In the interim, I reached out to LS founder Garry Gallagher who told me he felt confident about doing a very conservative restoration on the bag which would bring it back to its original color. Feeling happy with this direction, I contacted the “guru” to tell her that I decided against moving forward with my bag with her. Guess what? She had proceeded to color my bag without my explicit consent. My fiancé—who was with me for all these phone conversations—and I were horrified. However, the “guru” insisted that the bag looked gorgeous and that she had gone “so dark—closer to a black than a green” that the stains were obscured. She stated numerous times on the call that she was happy with how the restoration was going and that I should be. I took a step back and felt a sense of relief that, perhaps, she had produced a bag that she was proud of without compromising the integrity of the precious skin. I accepted the fact that she had “jumped the gun;” she had attained the seemingly unattainable—obscuring the staining, all while maintaining my one caveat, I wanted to maintain the bag’s transparency and feel: it’s integrity.
She sent pictures a few hours later and, in fact, the bag looked gorgeous from afar. I asked whether the natural patina of the skin had been maintained and she stated it was as “ostrich should be.” I would later find out that the finish she applied was artificial and not that of the actual ostrich. Before shipping the bag back to me, she sent me final pictures and a text stating the “hand feel [was] quite good.” She told me that she wasn’t able to dye the inside of the bag and added that she didn’t want anyone know that she had done the restoration on this particular bag. My fiancé and I didn’t understand this odd statement, but she played this off as her being a restoration purist. I would soon find out it was because this was a botched restoration.
I received the bag and was horrified. The bag felt like plastic. I called her. She could have bitten my head off. She called me ungrateful for not recognizing how much work she put into the bag (mind you, I spent nearly $600 on this “restoration”).
When we spoke weeks before, she told me that the bag took color beautifully, she was know admitting that the bag “fought” her and that she had to apply a lot of pigment to get the bag looking uniform. In doing so, she took away the natural feel of the precious skin. She had said the week before that bag had a good hand-feel, but literally now admitted it felt “awful.” Once again, with my fiancé listening, we couldn’t believe what we were hearing. Additionally! The gold goat skin on the inside of the bag was not properly taped off / protected and has green stains all over it. It’s a mess. The area surrounding the Hermes logo shows the true story that she had hidden up until that point.
She denies any accountability for the damage she did to this treasure of a briefcase and pressed me to ignore the sloppiness: “well, doesn’t it look better overall?” and “look at it from 3 feet away.” This “guru” reduced my $15,000+ retail briefcase into that which she warned me against. With no way to “turn back the clock” and hundreds of dollars spent on this restoration, I accepted a resolution to take back the bag, so she could at least attempt to at least address the area around the logo, etc. The only glimmer of hope was that, despite the circumstances, the bag would at least look as it would have coming back from a place like LS. She asked for what the insurance value on the bag would be (I’m assuming to protect her from having to pay out full retail during litigation) and then, immediately proceeded to cancel the label. She has since ignored six attempts to come to a peaceful resolution.
This is what I said:
Could you please refund the cost of refurbishing my Ostrich Hermes Sac a Depeches in addition to the shipping cost? I would genuinely like to put this episode behind us and head our separate ways amiably.
If you agree to this resolution, I will thereby release you of any liability regarding the bag.
Friends, do any of you have any suggestion? The bag has been “painted over.” The skin can no longer breathe and while it may look fine from afar, my heart aches for what was once a treasure.
Moral of the story: if Hermes botched a restoration, they’d fix it on their dime. My ostrich bag is now as good as “spray painted.” I would have taken it to the Spa in a heartbeat, but was told by this “guru” that she would do a better job than the spa, including color work they wouldn’t. There’s also a secondary moral here ... I pine for my original bag. Despite its staining and wear, it was stunning. A huge loss, but “things” come and go and are replaceable.
I’m posting pictures to show before and after degreasing / closeups of the sloppy work. It looks respectable from a few feet away, but the closeups and interior shots show the work of a charlatan.
I’m posting this as a lament to my Ostrich Hermes Sac a Depeches that was utterly devastated by a botched restoration.
I sent what was a stunning bag to an esteemed Hermes leather “guru” to try to refurbish my bag to its natural state (natural ostrich). I regret not asking for my treasure back when the bag looked even worse in the pictures she sent me after “degreasing.” She insisted that she alone had the skill and resources to work on this precious skin / potentially do some color work—work she said Hermes refuses to do and businesses like “Leather Surgeons” (LS) do by spray painting bags. I’ve since found out from LS founder that they do not “spray paint” bags, nonetheless, learn from my mistake and do not send your bags anywhere other than the Hermes spa.
This “guru” called me to suggest moving the color route. I felt like I was being upsold, but respected her reputation. She did a color test on a separate swatch of ostrich and told me that if we were to proceed with color, green would be the preferred route because of yellow undertones in the blue. She said that the green would be translucent and existing staining would still show through, but anything opaque would “suffocate” the skin. Translucency = a healthy skin and a sign of properly done color work. She said the darker we went, the better hidden it would be. With much to process, I explicitly asked for more time to decide how I wanted to proceed.
In the interim, I reached out to LS founder Garry Gallagher who told me he felt confident about doing a very conservative restoration on the bag which would bring it back to its original color. Feeling happy with this direction, I contacted the “guru” to tell her that I decided against moving forward with my bag with her. Guess what? She had proceeded to color my bag without my explicit consent. My fiancé—who was with me for all these phone conversations—and I were horrified. However, the “guru” insisted that the bag looked gorgeous and that she had gone “so dark—closer to a black than a green” that the stains were obscured. She stated numerous times on the call that she was happy with how the restoration was going and that I should be. I took a step back and felt a sense of relief that, perhaps, she had produced a bag that she was proud of without compromising the integrity of the precious skin. I accepted the fact that she had “jumped the gun;” she had attained the seemingly unattainable—obscuring the staining, all while maintaining my one caveat, I wanted to maintain the bag’s transparency and feel: it’s integrity.
She sent pictures a few hours later and, in fact, the bag looked gorgeous from afar. I asked whether the natural patina of the skin had been maintained and she stated it was as “ostrich should be.” I would later find out that the finish she applied was artificial and not that of the actual ostrich. Before shipping the bag back to me, she sent me final pictures and a text stating the “hand feel [was] quite good.” She told me that she wasn’t able to dye the inside of the bag and added that she didn’t want anyone know that she had done the restoration on this particular bag. My fiancé and I didn’t understand this odd statement, but she played this off as her being a restoration purist. I would soon find out it was because this was a botched restoration.
I received the bag and was horrified. The bag felt like plastic. I called her. She could have bitten my head off. She called me ungrateful for not recognizing how much work she put into the bag (mind you, I spent nearly $600 on this “restoration”).
When we spoke weeks before, she told me that the bag took color beautifully, she was know admitting that the bag “fought” her and that she had to apply a lot of pigment to get the bag looking uniform. In doing so, she took away the natural feel of the precious skin. She had said the week before that bag had a good hand-feel, but literally now admitted it felt “awful.” Once again, with my fiancé listening, we couldn’t believe what we were hearing. Additionally! The gold goat skin on the inside of the bag was not properly taped off / protected and has green stains all over it. It’s a mess. The area surrounding the Hermes logo shows the true story that she had hidden up until that point.
She denies any accountability for the damage she did to this treasure of a briefcase and pressed me to ignore the sloppiness: “well, doesn’t it look better overall?” and “look at it from 3 feet away.” This “guru” reduced my $15,000+ retail briefcase into that which she warned me against. With no way to “turn back the clock” and hundreds of dollars spent on this restoration, I accepted a resolution to take back the bag, so she could at least attempt to at least address the area around the logo, etc. The only glimmer of hope was that, despite the circumstances, the bag would at least look as it would have coming back from a place like LS. She asked for what the insurance value on the bag would be (I’m assuming to protect her from having to pay out full retail during litigation) and then, immediately proceeded to cancel the label. She has since ignored six attempts to come to a peaceful resolution.
This is what I said:
Could you please refund the cost of refurbishing my Ostrich Hermes Sac a Depeches in addition to the shipping cost? I would genuinely like to put this episode behind us and head our separate ways amiably.
If you agree to this resolution, I will thereby release you of any liability regarding the bag.
Friends, do any of you have any suggestion? The bag has been “painted over.” The skin can no longer breathe and while it may look fine from afar, my heart aches for what was once a treasure.
Moral of the story: if Hermes botched a restoration, they’d fix it on their dime. My ostrich bag is now as good as “spray painted.” I would have taken it to the Spa in a heartbeat, but was told by this “guru” that she would do a better job than the spa, including color work they wouldn’t. There’s also a secondary moral here ... I pine for my original bag. Despite its staining and wear, it was stunning. A huge loss, but “things” come and go and are replaceable.
I’m posting pictures to show before and after degreasing / closeups of the sloppy work. It looks respectable from a few feet away, but the closeups and interior shots show the work of a charlatan.
