I bet a cobbler could handle it. It seems pretty straightforward. Remove the stitching, fold the leather back the way it should be, then restitch it. Don't dunk until it is repaired as the handles soften up if water gets inside.
Coach Rehab and Rescue Club
- Thread starter greenpixie
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Hi @whateve, thanks for that. I was fretting over the order in which I shd rehab the bag. I hope I can have it fixed up nicely and share the before and after results (my fave thing to look at here). It's so visually satisfying 
She's finished! Thanks for all your help. I can see the shape isn't quite right but happy for my first rehab.
Ugh! I'm so sorry. I worry about that happening too. Good luck!!
Thanks. I am an admin assistant at a school, but I work year round. Been home since March 12. Literally talked to the principal Friday and was told there was no planned start date yet. Today I began the process of relearning to wake at 6 instead of 8. Today and tomorrow 7:45, then 7:30 and so on.are you a school teacher? Or am I just dense for associating principals with school? Lol. Anyways, I really feel for you. Theres nothing worse than last minute notice. Good luck going back to work. I hope the transition is not too bad for you!
The Bag Gods are good to us sometimes! And sometimes they taunt us. Especially on Mercari where they show you sold listings: "You've always wanted a periwinkle lunch box? Someone just got one for $42 an hour ago! So sorry."
All I could think is that the “someone” is valv54!!
Side note, the work server is down. Trying hard to think about organizing some work documents here. Instead of reading here and surfing listings. *looks at bag across the room that could use some CPR*
It looks fabulous and so classy, great job on your first rehab!
Thank you. This was my practice bag before starting on my Willis, hoping that turns out as well as this one.
My convertible clutch is washed. For a while it smelled like a dentist office. Not sure why, but that was all I could think of. The water gave off a little reddish water, but the wet bag looks mocha not burgundy.
Inspired by @Punkkitten I decided to customize my taupe City! I haven’t been using it because I didn’t like the wrinkled and stained flap. I used patched instead of pins because I found these pretty ones on Etsy:
The patches match so much better than I thought they would. The one on the front flap covers up a dark stain and some of the wrinkling. The one on the inside doesn’t cover anything; I just thought it would be cool to have one there
The patches match so much better than I thought they would. The one on the front flap covers up a dark stain and some of the wrinkling. The one on the inside doesn’t cover anything; I just thought it would be cool to have one there
I love it! Did you iron them in or sew them?Inspired by @Punkkitten I decided to customize my taupe City! I haven’t been using it because I didn’t like the wrinkled and stained flap. I used patched instead of pins because I found these pretty ones on Etsy:
View attachment 4758716View attachment 4758706
The patches match so much better than I thought they would. The one on the front flap covers up a dark stain and some of the wrinkling. The one on the inside doesn’t cover anything; I just thought it would be cool to have one there
Thanks! I use E6000 glue then pressed it flat with books for 24 hours! I put wax paper between my purse and the books so they wouldn’t accidentally get glued together. I was looking for iron on patches, but I loved the look of these ones, which didn’t have an iron on option.
Post 1 of probably 3.
Well here is my dye rehab experience. It was fun for about the first 10 minutes and then after that it became something of a chore to monitor how it looked as I added coats of dye and then it gave me anxiety when it came time to seal with Resolene. I am pretty happy with the results, but it is.....something to say the least. Here are some details.
1. Ready to begin. Chrystie/Christie however it is spelled. Picked this up on Mercari for $25 knowing it had the stain, mainly for the red NYC era hangtag that I wanted for a different red NYC that I have. I found that of the three NYC era bags that I have, this one I actually liked the best. So it became really hard to find the courage to toss this out or donate like I'd originally intended to do. As this bag grew on me, I tried multiple times to paint over these two spots with acrylic paint and it just never did look good. It began to really frustrate me. So knowing I have extra black vintage hangtags, I decided to dye this lovely red to black. With the gracious advice of some experts here, namely @MrsGAM, I started on this journey. It probably took a good ten days to go from start to finish.
2. Materials - rubbing alcohol for deglazing, and the rest, well you can see.
3. Deglazing. SO MANY red paper towels, it looked like I'd cleaned up a murder by the time I finished deglazing.
4. First time applying. I was not applying it all that thick though it really looked like it in this photo. Turns out even the thin coats I was applying was probably too thick. This was the first several minutes that were kinda fun.
5. "Hmmm, nope." I had tried and tried to envision a two-tone red and black dye job. In my head I thought it would look so good like this, but the real thing was super lackluster and I didn't like it like this at all. I kept going.
6. The suede parts soaked up a ton of dye. It look lots of passes to get it evenly coated and deep into the nap so that red did not peek through. It was here I contemplated leaving the inside of the bag alone because I was already starting to miss that gorgeous red. But alas, it wasn't to be, and so that dauber didn't stop.
7, 8, 9. First coat done and drying. Took about an hour to get to this point, and I had to spend another half hour after that lifting up the edges of the seams to get dye under those all around the entire bag. I noticed there were lots of red spots peeking through on corners, the strap, so I knew the next day would be another hour and a half of dyeing. But for the most part, I thought it was looking pretty good.....
Well here is my dye rehab experience. It was fun for about the first 10 minutes and then after that it became something of a chore to monitor how it looked as I added coats of dye and then it gave me anxiety when it came time to seal with Resolene. I am pretty happy with the results, but it is.....something to say the least. Here are some details.
1. Ready to begin. Chrystie/Christie however it is spelled. Picked this up on Mercari for $25 knowing it had the stain, mainly for the red NYC era hangtag that I wanted for a different red NYC that I have. I found that of the three NYC era bags that I have, this one I actually liked the best. So it became really hard to find the courage to toss this out or donate like I'd originally intended to do. As this bag grew on me, I tried multiple times to paint over these two spots with acrylic paint and it just never did look good. It began to really frustrate me. So knowing I have extra black vintage hangtags, I decided to dye this lovely red to black. With the gracious advice of some experts here, namely @MrsGAM, I started on this journey. It probably took a good ten days to go from start to finish.
2. Materials - rubbing alcohol for deglazing, and the rest, well you can see.
3. Deglazing. SO MANY red paper towels, it looked like I'd cleaned up a murder by the time I finished deglazing.
4. First time applying. I was not applying it all that thick though it really looked like it in this photo. Turns out even the thin coats I was applying was probably too thick. This was the first several minutes that were kinda fun.
5. "Hmmm, nope." I had tried and tried to envision a two-tone red and black dye job. In my head I thought it would look so good like this, but the real thing was super lackluster and I didn't like it like this at all. I kept going.
6. The suede parts soaked up a ton of dye. It look lots of passes to get it evenly coated and deep into the nap so that red did not peek through. It was here I contemplated leaving the inside of the bag alone because I was already starting to miss that gorgeous red. But alas, it wasn't to be, and so that dauber didn't stop.
7, 8, 9. First coat done and drying. Took about an hour to get to this point, and I had to spend another half hour after that lifting up the edges of the seams to get dye under those all around the entire bag. I noticed there were lots of red spots peeking through on corners, the strap, so I knew the next day would be another hour and a half of dyeing. But for the most part, I thought it was looking pretty good.....
Post 2 of 3
....Well I thought it was looking pretty good until I took it outside the next day into the direct sunlight. Quite a bit of difference between the shade and the direct light. Ahhhh the perils of the stormy season where days go by without any sunlight. I couldn't have picked a worse time to begin this.
10. Looked pretty flippin good in the shade. I was feeling kinda proud of myself.
11. Until the sun came out and it was clearly showing red. So back to the dye table.
12. Comparing the different black shades, I was trying to determine what I was going to end up with and prepare myself to be happy with it. It was shaping up to be a warm black versus Coach's typical cool or neutral black. My reaction: This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. Realized it needed another coat of dye for sure.
It was all in these several days where I stopped documenting the process and started slightly panicking. I found that as I added a 2nd and 3rd coat of dye to the bag to get some very persistent red spots from shining through, the dye was taking on an irridesence. After asking on this forum and googling some, I realized that getting an irridesence with the Angelus dye means it has been applied too thick, and I was also seeing areas that had become uneven in the coverage. But seeing as I'd already done the coats and they'd dried, and that using CPR after the 2nd coat and after the 3rd coat did not removed all the excess, I had a moment of weakness and took some alcohol to the bag to forcibly remove excess dried dye. This got me back to a place where I could apply another THIN coat and try to get the coverage without the irridesence building up. It turned out to be quite difficult to get the coverage both complete and even without getting the irridesence. So at some point I just had to get the bag to the most even coverage I could and stop dyeing. The interior was especially difficult to get evenly coated. I must not have deglazed enough, or I don't know why but there was quite a bit of red peeking through it bright sunlight. Remember, in the shade or indoors, the bag looked fantastic and had a satisfying deep rich black.
13. Here we are, I think, after one coat of resolene. I cut the resolene to one capful of resolene and three capfulls of water and applied it with a sponge brush I think. When it dried in only like 45 minutes, I was loving the sheen. Not too shiny. It seemed perfect to the naked eye. But in several photos it looked just a tad too dull and was not quite matching areas where the dye sheen was shinier and there were obvious differences in sheens. Also, it was allowing a huge amount of dye ruboff onto a wet q-tip. As much as I hated it, I knew it would need more coats of resolene.
14. I think this is the 2nd coat of Resolene and dried for 45 minutes. Gettin a little more shiny but still within the range I liked. But sadly it still allowed some ruboff onto a wet q-tip. The next day I went in with the attitude that the MOST important thing was to have a good seal so I gave up on the idea of keeping the resolene sheen in check and I mixed up another small batch cut down to only two capfulls of water to one capfull of resolene and applied the 3rd coat. The instructions were then to let it dry for a full 24 hours before using it. Which I dutifully did. Turns out after 24 hours, the bag was fully sealed and I didn't get any ruboff on anything wet, not a q-tip, sponge, cotton swab or anything. Makes me wonder if I'd let it cure after the 2nd coat for 24 hours if I'd have gotten the same cure, but I didn't realize the 24 hours wait was an actual "cure time," I just thought that meant it needed that long to fully dry. oh well, that is in the past now. The sheen I ended up with was at the threshold, or just BARELY over what I'd strived for that would still allow me to REALLY like the result.
15. I absolutely could not get the strap edge to take the dye. It kept soaking in past the surface. So I went with a light, single coat of acrylic paint to touch lightly touch up a the strap edge and a few tiny spots here and there that didn't take the dye all that well.
....Well I thought it was looking pretty good until I took it outside the next day into the direct sunlight. Quite a bit of difference between the shade and the direct light. Ahhhh the perils of the stormy season where days go by without any sunlight. I couldn't have picked a worse time to begin this.
10. Looked pretty flippin good in the shade. I was feeling kinda proud of myself.
11. Until the sun came out and it was clearly showing red. So back to the dye table.
12. Comparing the different black shades, I was trying to determine what I was going to end up with and prepare myself to be happy with it. It was shaping up to be a warm black versus Coach's typical cool or neutral black. My reaction: This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. Realized it needed another coat of dye for sure.
It was all in these several days where I stopped documenting the process and started slightly panicking. I found that as I added a 2nd and 3rd coat of dye to the bag to get some very persistent red spots from shining through, the dye was taking on an irridesence. After asking on this forum and googling some, I realized that getting an irridesence with the Angelus dye means it has been applied too thick, and I was also seeing areas that had become uneven in the coverage. But seeing as I'd already done the coats and they'd dried, and that using CPR after the 2nd coat and after the 3rd coat did not removed all the excess, I had a moment of weakness and took some alcohol to the bag to forcibly remove excess dried dye. This got me back to a place where I could apply another THIN coat and try to get the coverage without the irridesence building up. It turned out to be quite difficult to get the coverage both complete and even without getting the irridesence. So at some point I just had to get the bag to the most even coverage I could and stop dyeing. The interior was especially difficult to get evenly coated. I must not have deglazed enough, or I don't know why but there was quite a bit of red peeking through it bright sunlight. Remember, in the shade or indoors, the bag looked fantastic and had a satisfying deep rich black.
13. Here we are, I think, after one coat of resolene. I cut the resolene to one capful of resolene and three capfulls of water and applied it with a sponge brush I think. When it dried in only like 45 minutes, I was loving the sheen. Not too shiny. It seemed perfect to the naked eye. But in several photos it looked just a tad too dull and was not quite matching areas where the dye sheen was shinier and there were obvious differences in sheens. Also, it was allowing a huge amount of dye ruboff onto a wet q-tip. As much as I hated it, I knew it would need more coats of resolene.
14. I think this is the 2nd coat of Resolene and dried for 45 minutes. Gettin a little more shiny but still within the range I liked. But sadly it still allowed some ruboff onto a wet q-tip. The next day I went in with the attitude that the MOST important thing was to have a good seal so I gave up on the idea of keeping the resolene sheen in check and I mixed up another small batch cut down to only two capfulls of water to one capfull of resolene and applied the 3rd coat. The instructions were then to let it dry for a full 24 hours before using it. Which I dutifully did. Turns out after 24 hours, the bag was fully sealed and I didn't get any ruboff on anything wet, not a q-tip, sponge, cotton swab or anything. Makes me wonder if I'd let it cure after the 2nd coat for 24 hours if I'd have gotten the same cure, but I didn't realize the 24 hours wait was an actual "cure time," I just thought that meant it needed that long to fully dry. oh well, that is in the past now. The sheen I ended up with was at the threshold, or just BARELY over what I'd strived for that would still allow me to REALLY like the result.
15. I absolutely could not get the strap edge to take the dye. It kept soaking in past the surface. So I went with a light, single coat of acrylic paint to touch lightly touch up a the strap edge and a few tiny spots here and there that didn't take the dye all that well.
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