Louis Vuitton Clutch zipper replacement and repair May 2, 2017
In 2017, in advance of my friend's move to Australia, I decided to repair her favorite Louis Vuitton wristlet/clutch. This is an authentic Louis Vuitton. I am a huge believer in recycling and upcycling, so I searched for a purse at Goodwill that would have an acceptable zipper and hardware, as I wanted something coordinating with the traditional LV monogram colors. It had to be the correct size and the correct color, a tan or brown to coordinate with the LV leather.
After searching for several weeks, I found a fabric purse with coordinating brown leather and a coordinating tan/brown zipper and acceptable gold metal accents. I carefully seam-ripped both the original purse and the LV purse. As many of you know, the lining of the authentic LV purse is a tan suede leather, so it can easily rip. Also, as many of you know who have sewn, you do not pin leather before sewing, the proper method is to glue baste and clip, then use a leather needle which is like a little knife. The problem in repairing a leather item, is that you do not want to make additional holes in the leather, so you have to adjust your needle length on the fly as you sew, to go right back into the existing holes, as much as possible. So sewing it back together is a bit slow and tricky, a little faster than by hand, but you do NOT want to go fast. Otherwise you are perforating the leather more, and it will be much easier to rip the leather along the new stitching.
Here are a lot of photos to show my progress to the finish line. My friend was overjoyed that she had a working zipper again.
Original tab with original zipper pulled free. Tab is in poor condition. You can just see the LV logo on the metal parts above.
Above shows the de-lamination of the original wristlet strap and leather in poor condition
Above shows the original handle that came free, the original brown zipper, and original fabric mesh loop, all to be replaced.
Another photo of both sides of the damage to the wristlet.
Close up of the beginning of the seam ripping of the original LV zipper and lining, showing the original light tan thread on the leather lining, and dark brown thread on the outside of the purse.
Another close up of the zipper and tab, showing the yellow thread and de-lamination of the leather on the original tab.
fully removed zipper from the purse and other tab with the damage to the tab from de-lamination of the leather.
Fully removed original zipper and strap showing de-lamination of the strap.
purchased purse from goodwill. had similar acceptable color leather. Photo shows already removed part of the zipper and leather strap for the repair.
Photo of the other side of the donor purse, showing the gold metal circles and the matching strap to the donor strap from the other side. I seam ripped off the other side that was identical to this side, to obtain the donor strap and metal hardware.
the donor zipper in place, the donor strap in place, ready to sew.
Another photo of the donor zipper and the donor strap inserted into the end of the wristlet.
Photo of the slot between the wristlet outside and leather liner in which I inserted the zipper. Note the holes in the leather liner from the prior zipper. I used glue stick to tack the new zipper in place. The new zipper is inserted in the right slot, and I took this photo to show the left slot before I inserted this half of the zipper.
The inserted zipper on the left side, glue based to the outside of the purse.
Close up of the sewing to show attempted thread length matching the prior holes as well as the color of thread to match the outside of the wristlet. Sewing disappears with careful sewing and stitch length.
Opposite side before sewing and glue basting, showing the existing holes in the LV leather. This is the stitch length that must be matched on the fly to make a good repair.
Completed repair. Zipper tab was taken from the donor purse, note yellow thread on the donor purse which matches LV's yellow thread on original tab.
Another shot of the repaired purse, showing the strap on the bottom from the donor purse and tab on the top from the donor purse.
Close up of repair showing the donor strap.
One more showing the color of the donor strap, zipper, and zipper pull from the donor purse.
Close up of the stitching on the end of the purse capturing the donor purse strap and tab. I was unable to use the Janome Jem machine to go through all of these layers of fabric, so I used my Singer 201 which has a considerably larger motor. This is why the 201 was the choice for Mercedes to sew its leather. Portable, beautiful, powerful machine. The repair makes this evident. 4 layers of leather is no problem for the 201.
Close up of the corner detail repair and donor zipper, end strap, and hardware.
Last view of the donor zipper and tab.
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