Black Is The New Gold!

Just as I had blogged about gold vintage handbags being the latest must have item, I sold three black vintage handbags. Just goes to show, I know absolutely nothing about current market trends! If anyone can predict next week's trend, I would be grateful so that I can stock up.

The three bags, were sold to two different people, one in the USA and the other in France. The French lady bought a lovely 1950's handbag with a rose design and a fushia pink lining. I have had the handbag in stock for a while and had recently reduced the price. That obviously did the trick!

The other two handbags were older, one was a beaded Art Nouveau handbag and the other a small round beaded purse, probably 1930's-1940's. Both were quite recently acquired and both needed a small amount of work on them to bring them up to saleable condition. I had never actually attempted any beadwork before, so I was quite keen to see what I could do.

The Art Nouveau bag had a patch of beading missing in the middle of one side. The beads really needed replacing to stabilise the remaining beads surrounding the area. By sheer chance, I had come beads that were a near enough match to be used to fill in. Just repairing a small area made me really appreciate the work that originally went into making beaded handbags. No wonder they were expensive in their day!

The small round purse had some beads missing, a long tubular bead was snapped in the middle and the main structure of the beadwork on one side had come loose. Again the beadwork really needed repairing to protect the rest of the beading. Trying to recreaate the symmetrical arrangement of the bead network really got me thinking. It was not as easy as it first appeared. I was quite pleased with the final result though and the repairs I carried out to both handbags has certainly given me the confidence to take on more vintage handbags in need of some TLC.