How to care for your bag (Part 2, featuring MGFT "products")

This is probably going to be an on-going series on the topic of "care". Obviously some people know how to care for their old things better than others, which is how the whole "puffiness" obsession arises with the Dianas. 

MGFT, the shop, has been recently exploring ways to help with the after-care. Prior to sale, the beautiful gems have probably changed hands a few times, and quite a few of those have been in the hands of "professionals", dealers (or wannabe dealers like myself) who are quite experienced with dealing these very old items. Obviously not EVERYTHING can be taught, so we've been brainstorming here how and what we can do to help with the aftercare when the beautiful gem has reached its new and final home. 

Is this a "paid" product placement post? Probably, but why not because telling you why this is a great product should give you an idea for how you can dupe it at home if you wanted to. Do you need to BUY it? No, you really never have to buy anything we say. It just makes your life easier when someone who has more experience has hopefully done the thinking for you. 

Ferdie, the felt flap protector

This is actually nothing new because new and old Chanel bags do come with these. However, they often get misplaced or disintegrate. This fabric is usually a very thin, dense and soft felt. It's NOT craft felt. Picture below should show you the difference here. 

The felt protector is very important because one of the aspects we judge quality is by the inside puffs/under the flap area. So a felt protector prevents pressure put under the flap and could prevent minor hardware scratches. This is the one we are cutting for each bag we sell and you can buy them here. 

The sourcing for this wool that we use, took us all the way to Sham Shui Po in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a longstanding heritage for textile manufacturing and this tradition continues in Sham Shui Po (yes we took Sheryl along for the ride). 

Don't be deceived though, while there are hundreds of shops selling fabric for commercial use, most of them are not specialising in the felt fabric we were looking for. We took quite a few samples here and finally settled on this particular type of wool, which is incredibly thin and soft. Thinness is important as you don't want to actually force the flap to close with your felt painfully wedged here. 

This wool we found is actually used for premium down vest jackets usually and has the tiniest bit of stretch which is critically for the clasp hardware fixture part. It is by no means a CHEAP cotton fabric. Our first batch of felt protectors that we are cutting now, custom for each bag, is going to be made with this material. 

Do you need this? If you're using the bag daily, probably not. If you're putting it away for a long time, then would definitely something to separate flap from the inside of the bag. Anything soft would do but ensure it is thin and soft. 

Fluffy, the bag pillow stuffer for Dianas and Classic Flaps ONLY

This is the second "product" if you will. Designed quite painfully with quite a few samples and iterations as we've posted on stories just to ensure it is JUST fluffy enough. We call it, Fluffy, the sagging bag slayer (haha!)

We actually had this originally just to help keep the bags we were babysitting to stay stuffed. We obviously keep quite a lot of bags so it was getting annoying trying to find something to keep it properly stuffed all the time. If you only have one or two bags, then probably this isn't necessary. If however you have a few, then it's easiest just to use SOME sort of bag stuffer. Why prefer this over the bag organiser? Most important reasons are because the bag organiser takes up a lot of space when you actually use the bag AND inside it's EMPTY (as its a bag organiser) so not sure if its great as a shape preserver. Any product that is designed for one purpose and claims (as a freebie) to do another is really not going to serve the second purposes well. 

This pillow stuffer was designed in Shandong by a factory that manufactures pillows for your bedding and decorative cushions. It's slightly tapered to reflect the shape of the Diana and will also fit a classic flap. The reason we spent so long on the measurements is that the sides of the Dianas and Classic Flaps actually fold IN, so we wanted to ensure that this was never compromised and stretched OUT by the pillow stuffer. 

If you're going to keep using NON-acid paper to stuff your bag, then ensure that you switch the tissue paper periodically to prevent deterioration. Personally, would not use anything plastic as there can be adhesive or glue in the plastic (not the plastic itself) that can disintegrate and we've seen that happen before to the interiors. 

If you're using the vintage dustbag or dustbag to stuff the bag, FLIP THAT INSIDE OUT and then use it to stuff your bag. We've posted this before on Instagram but the ink printed on these dustbags definitely disintegrate over time and do leak into the interior of bags.