Coach Rehab and Rescue Club
- Thread starter greenpixie
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Great find! Guessing it will rehab beautifully.Hey Katev, I read your posts about that strapless Willis and what do you know it happened to me. Today I found a strap-less red Willis in the bargain bin at a thrift store for $3. I bought it, of course. But where do I go for a red strap? I looked at the silvercoach ebay site; those have the wrong hardware (even if I could match the red). There is some Amish site with the correct hardware but no reds. I have two other Willises, olive and black, so maybe I'll borrow and do a mismatch.
Thanks. One needs to be persistent to find these bags --and obsessed! Basically, I prowl a circuit of thrift stores, trying to hit two or three a week. It's amazing I keep a full-time job.
Opinions would be appreciated! I'm not sure what is up with my goodwill lately - maybe some spring cleaning going on, but I found two coach bags there on Monday! I walked away from both - one was red suede and I knew I wouldn't carry it. BUT I have been needing a low-stress cross body to take traveling that I wouldn't care too much about. There was a tan signature cross body with possibly vachetta leather in very good structural condition. However, it REEKED of cigarette smoke. They also had it priced way high - higher than the all-leather bag. I'm not a huge signature fan but I do like that particular combination. I saw in some of the posts here that getting smoke smell out of leather was pretty tough and time consuming. Would it be better or worse with fabric? Can the sig+vachetta be dunked? If it could be saved I might go back and see if I can talk their price down due to the stench.
It is easier to get the smell out of fabric in my experience. It can be dunked but vachetta gets stained by water. I've been able to clean vachetta with vinegar and a magic eraser. Vinegar might help with the smell. For all smoky items, I usually place them outdoors for a few weeks. It is easier getting rid of smoke than perfume.
Wow! What a find! I wouldn't have been able to walk away either.
Maybe you can find a gold chain strap to match the hardware?
You can do what I did and keep looking for a replacement strap or a donor bag on ebay and other online sights and thrift stores, but the red color is very rare.
You can try buying a light-colored strap and having it dyed.
You could also ask a shoe and luggage repair shop to make a new strap for you, but it may be expensive. The boutique Coach store can probably recommend a good local place for repairs.
Sorry, that's all I can think of!
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Me too! But I only have a part time job. Also unfortunately I rarely find anything at most Goodwills anymore because they send all the good Coach bags to the Goodwill boutiques who charge an arm and a leg for it. So I do buy some nice ones there occasionally but mostly they't too expensive and might as well be bought on ebay.
I did get this Berkeley bag today which has been authenticated $50 and I know that's decent for a Coach backpack but not exactly an amazing bargain. Has anyone ever dunked a suede bag like this? Do I have to do anything different to usual washing technique other than obviously not using conditioner on the suede and using the suede brush instead? I am very scared to wash it!
I think I washed my Berkeley. Just think of it as being inside out. If I were you, I might use RIT to refresh the black of the suede, but a bath might be all it needs.
Congrats on that bag - what a pretty style!
I dunked a precreed Berkeley-type bag without incident. I was nervous until I thought of it as just a reg. bag sewn differently, like Whateve said. I used only a very soft toothbrush and spent more time gently brushing the suede as it dried since it's the star of the show.
Post again if you're thinking of dyeing - I've been messing around with Rit with some good (and some very bad!) results.
Okay I will build up the courage to do this today. Actually the bag is not dirty. I cleaned a few spots off it last night with suede cleaner and they came right out. But I really want it to get some shape back, and see if the color deepens in that middle panel. I also want to remove some of the hairiness from the suede which I did a little last night with some small scissors. I'm not entirely satisfied. Overall the bag is in great condition though, so I would use it as it is if I wanted to use it today instead of washing it.
Rehab and rescue project!
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May I share my as yet unfinished story titled:
EBK v Convertible clutch ?
Assuming an affirmative response, I'll start. I wanted a longer strap for another bag and this one came with it, at a reasonable price. I happened to be at my sil's house in Massachusetts where all my stuff is sent (I live in Canada). When it arrived, swaddled in new white fluffy paper and accompanied by a coach dust bag, I was delighted. Thus ends the happy part of the story.
When I got it home, I discovered that about 2 inches of one corner had worn through, exposing the plastic wire. I wrote to the seller who promptly refunded half of the purchase price. So far so good.
Two days ago I started the dunk. The soapy water became a dark purple/navy colour. The bag is black and I was surprised. I could not see the bag itself in the water. Did a few more dunks and discovered that squeezing one side produced a flow of deep purple, the other a deep blue. Ink, obviously. Many more dunks later, the water remained almost clear and I rolled the bag in a large bath towel. The towel grew large black stains. Shoe polish.
If it weren't for the fact that it is a NYC bag, it would have been tossed. But I had bought a 4 oz bottle of industrial strength acetone and thought I would try it to clean off the polish. I may be imagining this but I could swear that the bag giggled at the size of the little bottle. I used all its contents on about a quarter of the front flap before the paper towels became grey (instead of solid black)after rubbing. There is so much shoe polish that it forms little rolls (like swished fresh white bread). I suspect that whoever owned this bag lovingly polished it once a week for the past 30 years.
DH took pity, went to the hardware store and bought a quart of acetone. I used some of it before feeling a bit woozy and headachy. I know I should be doing this outdoors but it is too windy. Sitting by an open window now as I write. Will return to do battle with the bag tomorrow.
Sorry about being so long-winded. Must be the acetone!
EBK v Convertible clutch ?
Assuming an affirmative response, I'll start. I wanted a longer strap for another bag and this one came with it, at a reasonable price. I happened to be at my sil's house in Massachusetts where all my stuff is sent (I live in Canada). When it arrived, swaddled in new white fluffy paper and accompanied by a coach dust bag, I was delighted. Thus ends the happy part of the story.
When I got it home, I discovered that about 2 inches of one corner had worn through, exposing the plastic wire. I wrote to the seller who promptly refunded half of the purchase price. So far so good.
Two days ago I started the dunk. The soapy water became a dark purple/navy colour. The bag is black and I was surprised. I could not see the bag itself in the water. Did a few more dunks and discovered that squeezing one side produced a flow of deep purple, the other a deep blue. Ink, obviously. Many more dunks later, the water remained almost clear and I rolled the bag in a large bath towel. The towel grew large black stains. Shoe polish.
If it weren't for the fact that it is a NYC bag, it would have been tossed. But I had bought a 4 oz bottle of industrial strength acetone and thought I would try it to clean off the polish. I may be imagining this but I could swear that the bag giggled at the size of the little bottle. I used all its contents on about a quarter of the front flap before the paper towels became grey (instead of solid black)after rubbing. There is so much shoe polish that it forms little rolls (like swished fresh white bread). I suspect that whoever owned this bag lovingly polished it once a week for the past 30 years.
DH took pity, went to the hardware store and bought a quart of acetone. I used some of it before feeling a bit woozy and headachy. I know I should be doing this outdoors but it is too windy. Sitting by an open window now as I write. Will return to do battle with the bag tomorrow.
Sorry about being so long-winded. Must be the acetone!
New fobs/charms/keychains are great motivators to finish up rehabs! Finally working through all those Murphys I started eons ago. This one wasn't too bad, just pancaked with some darkened corners that I touched up and a badly scuffed corner that I smoothed using Liquitex tinted with acrylic.
Do y'all typically refresh the color on strap edges? I don't but this one's bothering me and I might have to break down and do it.
Do y'all typically refresh the color on strap edges? I don't but this one's bothering me and I might have to break down and do it.
Beautiful and creative!
For strap edges, most of the time for me, conditioner is enough.