I am sad to hear they can't redo the piping afterall. Somewhat surprising, somewhat understandable. They do repair anything as long as the material in that colour still exists, they have hardware and other ingredients in matching colour (like edge paint).
The thing is that classic Taïga piping is a very different construction than any other piping they do. It was a special feature, exclusive to that line. I made a little pic, easier to explain that way. Normal piping is just a single strip of leather folded (sometimes with a plastic tube inside for structure), and that's it. Taïga piping was 2 layers of the exact same leather as the body of the bag itself. And their joint outside edge was painted with the exact same edge paint as the rest of the edges (although on Taïga most top edges were folded, so the painted ones were only these "piping" edges).
They replaced these pipings on Taïga pieces a few years ago with regular piping. They discontinued Ardoïse, and now they only have Black, which is a pitch black colour, not the duo-tone dark graphite that Ardoïse was. The edge paint of Ardoïse was also a lighter colour than the black they have for Black Taïga. My guess is that they either don't have enough stock left of Ardoïse leather, or they no longer have the same colour edge paint, and they — under no circumstance — will use "something somewhat similar". Would compromise the design integrity of the product. First I found this philosophy a little too much, but now I understand it. It wouldn't be the same bag.
