Rehabbing sad Chanels into glamorous, usable ones!

[SouthernPurseGal]

Hi there. I have started a hobby this past summer of buying (mostly vintage) Chanels that I can find for a thousand dollars or less, and then transforming them into Chanels that can fetch far more on the secondhand market, and then using those proceeds to buy multiple new fixer upper projects, and thus growing my Chanel family.... I had 2 in June and now I own 8 and I am selling my two least favorites to buy a few more project bags. I just love this so much, to get an outmoded flap and turn her into a head turner for today's (and my own) aesthetics.
I tried to look for a rehab thread I could play in and show before and after shots, but I didn't see one. I can delete this and go play on a different thread if anyone would like to steer me towards it?
Or I can just post about my hobby on this one. If anyone is interested!

 

[katlina]

Im smiling because I am doing the same - but for my own bag enjoyment. A warning: Most chanel lovers on here do not think too highly of vamped up bags, mostly because it does not make too much sense to make a worn bag LOOK new for a few months again - once a bag is saggy, worn or very used, cosmetic fixes are nice but its always to be taken with a pinch of salt of those vamped up, often repainted bags are sold for a lot of money to unknowing people. Therefore, I would not expect tooo much applause on here, I for exampe would not want to buy a grade c bag thats been treated to look like a B+ for a premium price. Its like painting an old house: looks good on the outside for a while but the interior and whats underneath is still old...

 

[SouthernPurseGal]

I'm doing it for my own bag enjoyment too, I just could never afford a family of flaps any other way than to flip a few and use the proceeds to buy more and lather rinse repeat. And I always disclose to anyone who buys a rehabbed bag that I painted it and the strap is not original, etc... and provide lots of photos of the inside, etc... so I have not had any buyers not happy. I haven't bought any bag with issues I could not fix, at least to my own standards. Other people might not think they are as good as I do, but I am only making hundreds per flip, so the people I have sold them to are still getting a good deal, just not a sub-$1000 deal like I did when I bought it in an unpopular color/leather/etc, with tarnished hardware that I shined up.
So to be clear, I am not bait & switching any unknowing people, and I am not doing this as a job or anything, I just am buying low, selling a bit higher, to raise money to buy more.... and to eventually end up with a nice collection for myself, before I am sick of this hobby. At some point I will be tired of it and just keep the bags I have and be done with it. But it's fun for now, and I end up profiting several hundred dollars per purse, which is enough to then buy another fixer upper and thus grow my collection of rehabbed/vamped up bags that I enjoy very very much.

I have never bought a purse with poor structural issues because that is not something I can fix. I could possibly get it to look good for photos, stuffed to the gils to hide the poor shape, with a glossy sealed new paint job, but it wouldn't look good carried out in the wild, so I would never enjoy it myself, and I don't think most Chanel fans would either, so those bags out there that are crumpled and sad (because of the broken down backing inside the leather) I consider totaled and don't buy to rehab. I likewise don't buy any with tears, rips, holes, etc....