If there’s one thing you need to know about owning a luxury designer handbag, it’s the importance of excellent care and maintenance. Should you decide to sell a designer bag in your care, its condition will play a major role in the resale value and will impact its position on the market. Even if you choose to keep the bag for yourself and use it, a scuffed and poorly cared for bag will not garner the same attention and admiration of one that has been well maintained.
With that in mind then, how do you prioritise maintenance and really look after a designer bag – specifically a Chanel bag?
There is a ton of literature out there regarding Chanel bags and how best to maintain them, looking at the different materials and care methods. Luckily for you, we’ve pulled together the best of all this advice and mixed it with our own experience to bring you a comprehensive go-to guide on caring for your Chanel bag.
Why Knowing Your Bag’s Material is Important
Chanel is known for using a versatile collection of materials across its collection, spanning classic leathers and more innovative and unique options.
Knowing what your Chanel bag is made of plays a major role in how best to clean and maintain it, as different materials boast different properties, strengths, and textures. The three main leathers used across the Chanel collection have different underlying properties, with caviar a strong and grainy leather whole calfskin and lambskin are much softer and more supple.
Chanel itself states that lambskin is the most fragile of all its leathers and is best maintained with as little treatment as possible. A ‘less is more’ approach is heavily favoured when it comes to lambskin, while other bags can be cleaned with soft fabric cloths and dedicated luxury leather cleaners.
Suffice to say, much of this only becomes apparent when you know what your Chanel bag is made from – and even then, extreme care should be taken to protect and preserve the authentic texture and finish of the bag.
Chanel’s Own Maintenance Advice
The advice that Chanel itself shares with regards to maintenance falls under five main headings:
Wear, Protect, Storage, Care, Appreciate.
It includes advice on how best to use and store an authentic Chanel bag to protect its structure and material, from not overfilling the bag through to avoiding prolonged exposure to harsh sunlight, moisture, and artificial light.
One of the most important things to recognise when owning and caring for a Chanel bag is the role of its dust bag. Every authentic Chanel bag should come in its own dust bag, with this representing the ideal way to store your bag when not in use. Not only does this protect the bag from damage, but it removes it from the unwanted effects of environmental exposure.
And then we have the fifth and final piece of advice, which sits under the heading ‘Appreciate’. This one is simple. If you own a Chanel bag, the best thing you can do is to appreciate its design, structure, and intrinsic beauty from all angles and throughout your ownership. Chanel herself designed and brought to life bags that were built to be used – with the best way to maintain one of these bags being to use it and love it.
Extra Care Tips From Luxury Handbag Specialists
Beyond the obvious tips to keep your bag away from harmful environments including moisture, rainfall, and bright sunshine, other advice includes rotating bags so as to limit use and being careful of placement and how setting your bag down impacts its structure.
With different leathers and materials boasting different aesthetic textures and structural benefits, it’s important to know your bag and recognise the best ways to clean it – using bag inserts and other techniques to protect the shape of a more supple bag.
Finally, remember that bag care is not just about the leather or fabric of the bag’s main body, but also its hardware and the handle. An authentic Chanel bag will boast a high value material across its hardware and chain, with these materials requiring their own approach to care – usually using jewellers cleaning tools and cloths.
Investing in a Chanel Bag
If you’re looking to buy your own authentic Chanel bag, spend time getting to know the different collections and their history, before heading to a reputable reseller to browse their available collection.
And don’t be afraid to ask for care and maintenance tips upon purchase!
