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Collecting & Restoring Coach Bags – Meet Coach Specialist Meagan Svendsen
Meagan Svendsen started collecting and restoring vintage Coach bags as a way of honoring her late mother. Now she owns over 450 Coach leather items – all restored by her.
“My mother was an avid antique and vintage collector. I have many memories of “antiquing” with her when I was young and uninterested. However, early in my teenage years, I took a liking to her vintage beaded bags and pink depression glass, eventually collecting my own depression glass style called Adam. Soon, she began to share all of her restoration tips with me. I learned to refinish antique furniture, sew and I took a special liking to learning to restore leather strops that she collected. She was an amazing restorer. She taught me all of her restoration techniques and shared her inquisitive heart for investigating the history of every treasure.
After losing her unexpectedly in 2021, and finding my first vintage Coach bag “in the wild”, my love of restoring was reborn and it was instant medicine for my grieving heart. Using the methods I learned from her I felt so close to her and it helped me cope with the loss. I was rehabbing vintage Coach bags while rehabbing my grieving heart. I honor my late mom with every restoration.
I love hunting for treasures and breathing new life into each piece that I find. It’s nostalgic for me because as a young girl, I spent so much time hunting for vintage and antiques with my mother. I honor my late mom with every restoration.
I love vintage Coach bags because of the high-quality, glove-tanned leather that is so resilient. I especially love the classic and timeless styles from the 60s-90s, and the rich history of the brand. The quality of the vintage leather and the rich history of the Coach brand is amazing.
I have somewhere around 450 vintage Coach pieces, which include bags, SLG’s (small leather goods), and pieces of Coach history, like a custom plate from the 2015 NY Fashion Week Coach dinner or the 2012 Store display Christmas tree, in my archive. I always say “they come, they go” because I am constantly curating and sometimes I retire pieces when I bring new pieces in.
I especially love anything from the Bonnie Cashin era of Coach. She was an American sportswear designer who became the spearhead for Coach in 1962 when they began their new women’s handbags and accessories collection to their men’s leather accessory business. Bonnie Cashin designed for Coach until 1974 but she left many of her design influences and details that Coach still uses today. For example, the turnlock, an iconic closure that Coach still uses today. Fun fact, Bonnie Cashin got the inspiration to bring the turnlock to her handbag designs from the toggle closure on her convertible car!
I wear many of my bags and use many of the SLG’s however, at least 30% of my collection includes very old, rare pieces that I will only use on special occasions. I want to protect the integrity of these pieces of history.
The Crescent is my favorite style. It was a Bonnie Cashin design, and it reminds me of a bag my mother wore when I was young. They made the crescent style from 1972-1984 in 14 (known) colors. I spent the entire 2023 trying to find every color to complete my collection. I love so many other styles but none as much as the Crescent.
My unicorn is my pine color Crescent, the most beautiful green that was only made until around 1976. It is the color of my late mother’s eyes. I was so lucky to get it from another collector who had it and knew I was looking. The vintage Coach collecting community is quite small and so many of us are friends sharing in our love of vintage Coach. Coach produced the style 1972-1984 however, the pine color was rarer since they discontinued that color only a few years after releasing the bag style.
I have quite a few other rare pieces, another is a Bonnie Cashin for Coach Cashin Carry See Thru Shopping mini Tote from 1966. It has holes in it, almost like Swiss Cheese! I know there isn’t one in the Coach Archive, so it is extra special to me.
I also own a Crescent that is white with navy trim that we didn’t know was ever made in that colorway. Another that I know the Coach Archive doesn’t have. It is from 1972.
Regarding the restoring, the most important tip is to keep your leather moisturized, have patience when restoring it and use the right products – you can see my product recommendations linked in my Instagram bio.
The most common mistake I see people make is using colorants. Shoe polish, leather recoloring balms, leather paint, and dyes all can prematurely damage this glove-tanned leather. These bags restore without the need for those. You need patience and time to remoisturize dehydrated leather. Dehydration is usually why bags look faded or appear to have color loss, it just needs to slowly hydrate with leather conditioner.
The Coach Counterfeits Facebook group is the best resource for authenticating your Coach bags. There are experts there who authenticate your bag for free! I have also most of the catalogs linked on my Instagram and my TikTok and they are great references.
Here are two quick tips if you want to authenticate your bag: Look for misspelled words in the creed (also known as the story patch) – that is a common sign of a counterfeit bag. Lastly, Coach bags were never made in Korea. If it says it was, it is not authentic!
When I am ready to retire a bag from my collection, I often reach out to other collectors to see if they are interested and either do a trade or I sell it. I also occasionally use resale sites to sell pieces. My bags have come from a mix of online resale platforms, estate and garage sales, vintage stores and trades/purchases from other collectors. There are always more styles and colors that I am looking for, that’s what makes it so fun!”
Follow Meagan on Instagram @vintagecoachrestore and TikTok @meagansvendsen
Coach Derby crossbody