Faux Chanel+Monkey Fur Purse

I've lusted for Chanel, but seriously won't spend thousands. And I really dig taxidermy/creepy vintage furs. At House of Vintage, I found a rad vintage 40's era monkey fur hand muff ($10) and a basic faux patent leather Chanel purse ($10).


I thought the two would look good together. I haven't seen a monkey fur handbag lately coming from designers but I've seen some resurgence coming from Alexander Wang. Here's my monkey fur faux Chanel bag project:
I gutted the muff of its horse hair/cotton batting, leaving just the leather. The leather was really dry so I treated it with leather conditioner to make it more pliable.


I fit the leather to the purse size and began sewing it with an upholstery needle.

I thought the padded effect looked better than flat so I tucked some of the original cotton batting under the leather to make it puffy.

Here's the end result. I lost the clasp because I didn't want to cut a hole in the leather, but I think it still looks good. I really love the gold/leather chain handle it can be let out to be super long or doubled up to be two shorter lengths. The patent leather quilting+monkey fur looks killer together.