"They don’t make them like this anymore."

How many times have you heard someone say that? How many times have you heard us say that?

What people are referring to is the difference in leather quality between vintage and modern Chanel handbags. Have you ever thought critically about why people are saying that? 

You're in the right place, because we're going to talk about it right now.

Same raw material, different quality

Let's first is talk about the raw material of leather itself and how that’s fundamentally changed in vintage Chanel vs. modern Chanel pieces.

To keep it straightforward, we will reference the lambskin classic flap.

So the base of material of all our handbags is leather, but the variations and outcomes of how the leather is treated will fundamentally make the leather feel and look very different.

Leather texture: buttery and soft vs. thick and coated

People will often comment that vintage Chanel lambskin is super buttery and super soft compared to current day lambskin even though they have the same product name. Physically, they feel very different, with modern lambskin having a thicker, almost plasticky and coated texture.

Below, we can see that new lambskin has a visibly less porous skin compared to vintage lambskin. 

Finishing weight: heavy vs. light

What accounts for this different in appearance? It actually has to do with the way the leather has been treated.  

Vintage lambskin has a very light finishing to it, allowing for the natural lambskin to really shine through and so that's why they feel so soft.

Dyeing techniques: soaking vs. layering

Another key difference between vintage and modern lambskin is in the dyeing technique.

To ensure the soft buttery feeling you need to dye it in a way where the dye is completely soaked like a cotton pad into the natural animal skin. It doesn’t sit on the surface. This method of dyeing allows the softness of the leather to continue to shine through. 

Additionally, there is a very light finish as we like to say on this leather, which means you don’t see any metallic pigment or powder on top. When you have such a light finish leather as vintage lambskin, it is impossible to hide imperfections in the original skin and also any imperfect technique in the process of creating this piece of lambskin. 

Now in modern day lambskin, a different type of dyeing method is used one where the dye actually sits on top of the leather and does not get absorbed. This results in an incredibly thick finish and quite frankly you can’t really tell what’s underneath unless you put acetone to erode that finish. 

Below, you can see how the thicker coating hides a lot of grain detail which results in a more "perfect" looking bag at the cost of looking less natural.

A thick finish, whether that is because of the dye from any pearly/metallic coloring can mask everything underneath, from the natural qualities of the leather to the techniques used to turn that skin into leather.

Wrapping up

And that is why a lot of people consider Vintage Lambskin to be much more 'valuable' because it’s so much more difficult technically to maintain and even bring out the softness of lambskin than it is to just thickly coat it with dye and mask all of its natural qualities.

I hope you found this useful and hopefully I will continue with this blog posting! If you’re interested in learning more about the technicalities of handbags, especially Luxury handbags give us a follow on instagram or TikTok @mygrandfathers and I will see you in the next post, bye-bye!

Granddaughter/Boss Lady