We kicked off 2026 hosting our first community event of The Handbag Club: The Art of Preservation.
This event was led by Jeeves of Belgravia, Hong Kong's leading dry cleaner. In addition to delivering luxury garment care, they also provide restoration services for handbags.
Ryan Merszei, the owner of Jeeves, brought along his top two restoration experts, Patrick and Mandy, who combined have over forty (!!) years of experience in leather care. The two craftspeople went over the processes of re-plating, cleaning, and dyeing handbags.
Above (from right): Ryan Merszei with his two leather specialists Patrick and Mandy.
As you know, at My Grandfather's Things, we do not retouch any of the vintage Hermès and Chanel bags we source. That being said, we do think it's important for our customers to know trusted sources in case you need them.
Re-plating a vintage Celine calf shoulder bag via brush plating
Here, Patrick demonstrates the process of re-plating the buckle of a vintage Celine calf shoulder bag. First, he cleans and polishes the buckle, then uses a 24 karat gold solution for the finish. How does this work, you ask?
A special brush-like tool is connected to an electrical current source and soaked in a gold plating solution, then carefully applied to the surface of the hardware. The electric current facilitates the deposition of the gold onto the specific areas being "painted."
To be honest, before this workshop, I thought re-plating meant the whole buckle had to be replaced. So imagine to my surprise at how chemistry from high school was suddenly so cool. It was so satisfying to see the re-plating in real time.
Removing oil and ink-based stains from leather
Then, the Jeeves team passed out leather swatches that had five of the worst common stains most bags can have. Coffee, lipstick, crayon, highlighter, and ballpoint pen. And these stains were left on for five days in preparation for this event. We each had leather cleaner and cotton pads and had to do our best to remove each stain.
Out of these five, which do you think is the hardest to remove? If you guessed ballpoint pen, you'd be correct. Surprisingly, the easiest to remove was the yellow highlighter. So no more pink highlighters for me!
Re-dyeing leather
Finally, we were each given paint and tried to re-dye the leather swatches. It's not as easy as you think.
We had to color the swatch yet maintain the texture of the leather and follow the grain and...yeah, maybe leave this kind of project to the experts.
Next up for the Handbag Club. A world tour?
Everyone had such a great time and it was such a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Would you be interested in this kind of event in your city? Let us know and we'll add it to the Handbag Club's 2026 World Tour.
