VARNISHED CANVAS - LOUIS VUITTON Mail TRUNK

It is a new restoration that we present to you today.  

To understand the world of the trunk collection , you have to measure its entire environment. Almost all Louis Vuitton trunks , even the rarest, have been abandoned part of their life and many have suffered accidents on the way: forced lock, unsuitable storage, humidity, repairs, poor restoration ...

This mail trunk was brought to us from Miami by airliner, and the least we can say is that repatriation from the new continent was in itself an adventure.  Imagine the surprise of travelers in the corridors of flight terminals when they see a trunk of this volume! For the owners of the trunk, the goal of this restoration was not only to have a prestigious object to decorate their home , but also a family heirloom to be passed on to future generations.

Given its advanced state of deterioration, they wished us entrust to regain its beauty and radiance original . After having carefully examined the trunk and following many discussions with the owners concerned about the most perfect restoration, we have agreed to remain as faithful as possible to the original design and to erase all the bad restorations.

Here is the diagnosis of this trunk:

• A thick layer of varnish covered the trunk.

• The lock had been forced.

• The clasps had been replaced by American steel models.

• The top of the trunk had been painted black.

• A wooden slat on the top had been changed.

• At the rear, slats had been added improperly.

• Of brass brackets were replaced by steel models.

• The interior had been reinforced with steel plates.

Louis Vuitton has been offering personalization of its luggage for 150 yearswith the following additions:

• Initials

• Bands of color, said bands stable

• Coat of arms or logo  

It was a way for customers to stand out and bring a touch of originality to their trunks, but it was also and above all a practical imperative.  Because at the time, we traveled with about ten trunks per person and it was necessary to distinguish them from those of other travelers. Personalization was therefore mainly used to recognize the trunks of the same owner or the same family .

Exclusive services came to collect the luggage from their owners and took care of all the logistics on the station platforms and in the ports, so that they could find their trunks at home on their arrival. On our luggage, as on many Louis Vuitton trunks, we find a personalization in the form of the initials FSM ., Circled in red. 

As always, we carried out a battery of samples in a corner of each face in order to obtain the best result and to be able to carry out the restoration protocol . Indeed, each canvas , each trunk is unique and requires specificrestoration work , adapted to its particularities. We therefore never perform the same restoration twice. The most complex being the top of the damaged trunk , we needed no less than 5 different products to overcome the damage! We did not use paint of any kind, we only removed what had been added. Underneath a superb Mark 2 checkered canvas appears.

We replaced the wood that was not original and those that had been replaced improperly with a wood of the same nature (beech) and the same color as the original. Also, we carried out a xylophene treatment on the original woods that have been preserved. This preventative preservative solution is used to kill the insects and pests present, protecting the wood for the next 15 years.

We have one of the largest collections of authentic Louis Vuitton spare parts . We therefore replaced the non-original brass clasps with authentic Louis Vuitton pieces from the same period. 

The brasses were very oxidized. Each nail has been polished without attacking the  adjoining canvas or leather. The brasses are superb and give shine to the trunk. We do not seek to replace original parts with new ones, but to enhance existing genuine parts .

The interior of the trunk will be repaired because the previous restorations had not been made in accordance with the artisanal techniques of Louis Vuitton, far from it. We are therefore going to do it again identically. We glue the canvas directly on the wood and we redo the ribbon quilting with the same gestures as in the past. This is the know-how of Parisian trunkmakers.