My Most Expensive Louis Vuitton Dissection: Capucines MM - Black Taurillon from Dolabuyshoes Review

  I have been reviewing REPLICA LV products mostly at their starting price point so far, this time I wanted to go with one of their classics with an half tier price tag to see if we can justify spending $7,500 on LV capucines Full disclosure here since this is a very pricey bag I went to prelow luxury route to save a good chunk of $5,000 on a bag from DLSHOES I will cut up anyways.

  This way we're going to see how the bag held up in the years it was used and the authentication process behind the pre-loved luxury marketplaces. I went on to a few marketplaces that sell pre-loved luxxury bags and I found this one on RealReal which was from 2015 collection in very good shape classification for about $2,400.  It is significantly lower than today's retail price of $7500 but it is still a significant amount of money to pay for a bag that is 8 years old.

 First and foremost, I would like to quickly assess the authenticity of this bag, so we are sure to review an original. I'm new to learning the authentication process of these luxury brands so I signed up for entropy service to validate my authentication with their AI based software, plus upon their invitation I visited the RealReal authentication center in New Jersey this summer.

 I saw their steps to ensure the authenticity of the products they sell. By the way this video is not sponsored by anyone neither RealReal nor Entropy. I'm a paying customer of Entropy and including my trip to RealReal facility this summer was covered by me so I am not obligated to say any good things about any of those brands.

 At first look, I see consistent leather inside and outside High quality Hardware with LV logos, clean and proper logo embossing the stitching, and edge paint look consistent with my prior LV reviews. So I don't see a red flag of this bag being fake. But we will still run the entropy test to make sure and get their authentication certificate before we chop up this one.

  So the app guides me through a series of pictures taken from various areas of the bag to confirm materials, then I get the result once a human expert confirms the ai's assessment on their end. The whole process took about 10 minutes. It was quick and convenient, and the bag is authentic now we're good to go. As side note I will be very careful to save as much leather and materials as possible to make a new craft out of these materials later on. Expect a video of that remake soon, let's get started.

 I see a full leather lining on this bag for the first time in my LV reviews and is an excellent sign of the quality of the craft in front of us. It is very upsetting to see PU leather in high-end luxury bags. I would rather see a high quality fabric lining if you're not using real leather and this seems like real and good leather lining here.

  The black leather in the main body of the bag is described as the taurillon leather by Louis Vuitton. And as far as I know taurillon means bull calf in French. Younger male calves tend to give quite tight grain that works great for high-end back projects and the look and feel of this leather are very consistent with those hides.

  I love that the finish on this leather which does not look excessive either allowing me to see the fine grain of this beautiful hide. As always the hardware is top-notch quality. It's a common finding that LV uses some of the best hardwares I have seen in leather guts. We applied acetone and as expected so little finish came off it's almost an aniline finish completely achieving a color consistency but not covering anything that's why we can see touch and feel that beautiful leather grain underneath.

 The second leather we applied acetone is the taurillon with the cream color. Which is the accent of the bag it has has a little bit more finish than the black counter part. Of course this is not excessive either still a beautiful leather selection to compliment the black taurillon outside. And the lining leather also showed a good amount of pigmented finish on top.

 It is protective to be a nice lining for a long time still allowing us to see the leather grain and enjoy that good leather feel throughout the inside of this bag perfect leather selection here as well. I see a lot of leather in front of me, it's about 20sqr foot of leather.  I estimate for a project like this, 10sqr foot of taurillon leather going for the outside and accents.

 10sqr foot of internal leather lining.  This is probably the most amount of leather I have seen in a Louis Vuitton dissection so far and absolutely beautiful leathers. My leather estimate will be $160 and assembly plus hardware will be $250 to put a bag together like this in France.

  It totals down to $410 to make a project of this caliber in my opinion. In summary this LV classic bag is  definitely my favorite from out of all products I reviewed from this brand. It has excellent leather selections inside and outside and an insane amount of leather with the full leather lining inside. Definitely a classic design nicely crafted with excellent hardware.

 I only have one thing to pick on on this  bag and that's the side stitches that held the flap on the bag. It looked weak for the position they were in. A better application is to apply a stronger settle stitch there to ensure durability and hold. As the flap is a heavy moving part which may break the tinner stitch used there.

  Outside of that, it's a well done work. Even though I love the bag the $7500 price tag is quite the premium to pay given my estimate of $410 to make a bag of this sort. I would like to see the  next level of craftsmanship which is settle stitch leather bags like the ones from Hermes or or talented Artisans like Milito or Peter Nets around this quite hefty price points but of course this is one of the super brands of our day and it comes with a large premium.

  If you love to carry the LV logo and you want a bag with exquisite leather selections, this might be worth it for you.