Balenciaga City Restoration

The Balenciaga City bag quickly went from cult status to classic, and has always been a firm favourite with Fashion Editors and Celebrities. The soft goat and lambkin leather is one of the reasons it is loved so much, but this leather can fade and wear quickly if not appropriately protected.

At Handbag Clinic we have perfected the art of restoring a Balenciaga City, ensuring every detail from worn corners, staining, handles and even the iconic chunky thread finish is restored perfectly while maintaining that soft and supple feel.

The Process

Firstly, we thoroughly clean the bag inside and out, and prepare the leather accordingly. At Handbag Clinic, we make the majority of our products in-house. Being specialists in the field, we have developed our products to work perfectly together to create long lasting results.

Balenciaga city bag restoration at the handbag clinic

We then use a specialist solution on any ink or oil stains, removing them as much as possible before applying colour. Oils and Inks trapped into leathers can cause problems further into the life of the item, so we will go over an ink or oil stains repeatedly until we are satisfied that the staining has been successfully drawn out.

We then remove the string from within handle if it has become worn and frayed. We then apply another specialist degreasing solution to the leather handles in order to absorb any natural oils or hand creams. Some handles require a longer, more invasive degreasing process, but as this a very absorbent leather and the wear is not too significant, it can be drawn out using this lighter method.

We then trim any frayed edges and loose edging before applying a fresh coat which seals all of the edges where the leather joins and gives a seamless finish. Before applying colour, we also strengthen and repair the corners of the bag, a key area that shows signs of wear. This is lightly buffed smooth.

Our team are experts in colour matching and will always look for the least used area of the bag, such as under a flap or the interior to determine the true, original colour. The colour is then mixed before it is added to our conditioning balm, which restores colour, shine and condition.

For areas that need a little more TLC, we then lightly mist the unique colourant over these areas in fine layers to maintain the softness of the leather and the conditioning work we had carried out in the last step. All metal work and zips are covered for protection during this stage of the restoration.

We then touch up the small, fine and detailed areas such as the iconic buckle detail. Additionally, a slightly darker finish is applied to the edge coat. We then move onto creating a bespoke dye, which is used to dye the white string to the desired colour. This is then rethreaded and our protection treatment applied.