[peaceful music]
[airbrush spraying]
My name is Charlotte Staerck,
and I am cofounder of Handbag Clinic.
And our senior artisan did complete this work,
but he's not so comfortable on camera,
so I'm gonna talk you through the steps today.
So, this Mulberry bag is one of
the worst Mulberry bags we have seen.
The handles were completely contaminated with oils,
which you will see, obviously,
a frequently touched area of the bag.
All of the edging had actually completely came off,
and the leather was beginning to split.
There was areas that were
really badly scuffed on the bag as well,
and there were areas where
the leather had became burned and very, very dry.
And as you can see throughout the process,
there is just significant color loss,
which is bleach, usually from the sun.
We start by removing the handles,
just because we knew
we weren't going to be using those handles
because of how damaged they were.
With this item, we began by actually
completely turning the bag inside out.
The inside of this item is suede.
We use our suede cleaner that we make in-house
and a very fine-bristled brush
that will allow us to get
really into those fibers within the suede
without causing any buffing down
of those suede fibers as well.
We then turned the item back to its original way
to begin the cleaning process
on the exterior of the bag.
And we began with our leather-cleaning product,
which is a water-based cleaner
that is safe to use at home.
And we cleaned the entire bag with that,
just to take off the surface dirt,
any bacteria that had been absorbed into the bag,
and then began our preparation process,
where we use fluids to help
to prepare the leather for the restoration.
These products will be products to
dry out any areas that have absorbed any oils
and, as well, areas that have became
slightly scuffed or damaged.
What we will do is we will add product,
which we call binder,
that, again, is made within house.
And it helps to really bind those fibers together
and create strength in the leather
where it may have been scuffed or damaged.
On the areas that are significantly burned,
and they've kind of molded in a quite strange way,
they needed a product,
which is a leather-revival product
that sits on the leather for 24 hours.
And it is full of really,
really nourishing oils to try and help
soften up that leather.
The filler that we use is a flexible filler,
which allows us to repair holes in the leather
without restricting the leather.
It molds in line with the leather
to ensure that there'll be no seams
or breakages and it will just bend
perfectly fluidly with that leather.
Then we'll sand that and buff that down
to make sure that it is a smooth and
is a perfect fit with the rest of the leather.
With this item, that was needed on the corners.
We need to get a color match accurate.
So, with this bag,
because there was actually no areas
that were immediately visible,
usually we would get a color match
from a area of the bag such as the inside,
an inside flap that hasn't been seen by the sun.
We would usually use that,
but this was past that point.
So what we actually did with this item
was we took off the metalwork
so we could see an area that
had been completely untouched.
Once the leather was completely prepared,
the areas that were burned
were as improved as they could,
we combined those colors until
we had that perfect color match.
So we filled and prepared all of the corners,
we got our color match,
and we began to spray this item.
We will use hand brush
around those very hard-to-reach places,
but we will use the airbrush because
this means the finest amount of colorant
is being placed onto the item.
The Mulberry oak color
is usually a dyed leather,
but to recreate that, what we do is
we use brown;
we use white to lighten the bag,
depending on the shade of oak
that we're looking to achieve;
we then have a yellow oxide,
which will create that nice and natural
rustic and a multi-tonal aspect to the leather.
So, we colored the entire bag
back to its original color,
and we attached that metalwork seamlessly,
so the client will have not even known
that their metalwork was removed and repaired.
It's that seamless.
This metalwork was lightly polished,
because what Mulberry actually used is a coated metal,
rather than a metal you might see on a Chanel bag,
which could be replated and restored.
So all we can do with this is actually polish it,
because it's not quite
the same grading of metal to allow you to do
any replating or serious restoration work.
There are some elements of the bag
that we made the professional decision
not to restore.
So, these areas are the two tabs,
which come down and close the bag with studs.
They are a slightly different leather type
and are designed to have that
contrasting finish to the bag.
And the clochette as well.
So we kept those with just cleaning
and very light restoration work
to revive that leather as much as we can,
but we didn't color any of those areas
because of that design.
We created the handles.
[airbrush spraying]
[peaceful music]
And also colored those to be the color of the bag.
This bag was quite interesting because, the color,
there were certain areas of the bag
which were a slightly different color
and were designed to be that.
So we followed that design
and ensured that there were some areas
that remained a slightly lighter shade.
The handles were then hand-sewn onto the bag,
and it was ready to go.
[lively violin music]