Today's wacky fashion question:

[cupcake_goth]

Where would I take a vintage fur to be repaired and cleaned? I now have a vintage mink capelet from my grandmother, and one side has pretty much come apart. It's not that the seams have unraveled, it's that the fur tore (?) along those seams.

I would really like to get the capelet restored to a wearable condition. (Yes, I would wear it, because it's a vintage piece from my grandma, who is an amazing woman.) I just have no idea where I should take it.

EDITED: After handling it more, I don't think the capelet can be restored to a wearable condition. The pelts are tearing much too easily. I think I need to look into having the caplet used as the base materials to create something else. Whatever I end up having made from it, I need to have part of the lining used, too: the part that has my grandmother's name embroidered on it.

Comments

[erischild.livejournal.com]

I've had a few pelts that started to fall apart, and I used a gentle leather conditioner with lanolin on them and that seems to have shored them up a bit. I got the conditioner at Restoration Hardware a million years ago, (oh, here it is http://www.restorationhardware.com/rh/catalog/product/product.jsp?productId=prod1356003&navAction=jump ) and it works well on leather coats, pelts and sheepskins.

Barring finding someone satisfactory to take care of it for you, if it were my piece I would take the lining off, treat the leather a few times to get it nice and supple, or as near as one can, and then reline it. You may have to call the bits still in the seams a loss, but you should be able to salvage most of it.
I suppose if absolute worse came to worst, you could adhere the fur to, say a measure of silk or satin and keep it in one piece that way.

I have a book on tanning that you're more than welcome to borrow for ideas if you'd like.