Restoring puffiness to a very vintage chanel

[Rsss1]

Hi,I have this vintage Chanel where the quilts are very flat and even dimpled, I would like to restore some of the puffiness at least, I tried this process and these are the results before and after

1- cleaned using cleaner
2- used acidifier
3- soaked the bag with hydrator, first it was super dry and kept absorbing it, but when it was saturated I put tissue paper on it and put it in ziplock bag
4- I waited for 72 hours, occasionally rehydrating it
5- I saturated it with fatliquor, then waited for 20 minutes and used hydrator again
6- I just let it dry

The picture below is the before and after, I did this twice.
Does this mean the puffiness cannot be restored to this bag?

Thanks!
Before:
11414

After:
11415

[Roger Koh]

>>> Does this mean the puffiness cannot be restored to this bag?

It will improve when you improve what you are doing, let us review your steps.


>>> 3- soaked the bag with hydrator, first it was super dry and kept absorbing it, but when it was saturated I put tissue paper on it and put it in ziplock bag

'When it was saturated' was it soft enough for you to do a little stretching to revert the shrinkage? The reason why the quilting is flat and dimpled certainly is due to the loss of the original fatliquor (fat and oil) through evaporation, right? So at this stage, the leather should be a bit stretchable, and need to be careful not to tear the stitching holes. I would use the tip of a teaspoon and try to stretch from the center of the quilting. I would work one diamond shape at a time, dripping the Hydrator 3.3 and gently stretching it, as it stretches I will drip the Fatliquor 5.0 and continue to stretch from the center to the edge.

>>> 4- I waited for 72 hours, occasionally rehydrating it

Hydrating without stretching goes nowhere, the leather will need to be replenished with fat and oil, otherwise, the fatliquor dries empty and it shrink back again.

>>> 5- I saturated it with fatliquor, then waited for 20 minutes and used hydrator again

Now you understand, that the hydrator allows you the chance to stretch the leather, and once the leather is stretched fat and oil need to take up the space from shrinking back to square one.

You have done the hydrating correctly, just lack of stretching and immediately applying the fatliquor before the leather dries up and shrinks back again. Remember soft leather has an average of 14% of fat and oil by weight. 5/6 of fatliquor is water that you add to the bottle and this water need to evaporate from the leather, what remains is the 1/6 of fatliquor fat that plumps the leather for fullness and the oil that lubricates the leather for flexing smoothness.

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Roger Koh
Leather Care System Formulator
Consultant / Practitioner / Instructor / Coach
web: www.leatherdoctor.com
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