The strap on my purse broke. How do I fix it?

Do you have access to a large needle and heavy duty thread? You could hand-sew the strap to the lining—which looks like is the way it is attached on the other side. You’d probably need a leather needle.

If you truly love this purse, then look to see if there is a shoe hospital or luggage repair place around near you. They will have the heavy-duty machines and needles to sew the strap back in place.

Otherwise, you might want to poke some holes through both purse and strap with something like an ice pick and then run a needle with heavy thread through the holes. That is how folks used to make shoes by hand – poke holes in the leather and then run the cord through the holes.

listen to @Darwin

A shoemaker can fix this for you.

@andrew I can’t do the needle thing very well because of the floppies. I could do it in a safety pin motion, just in one side and out the other without pulling it all through, but I don’t know if that would hold very well.

I can try going to a shoe maker/ luggage repair /etc, but I’m hoping to not spend a lot on repairing it. I paid $30 for it (it was on sale from $50–60 I think), but it is my favorite purse, and the only one I have that I actually like.

@dee1313 No, i know, but can’t you gently pull the lining away from the floppies?

You have three problems:

Getting the strap to stay in there.
Getting it to look decent.
Getting it to bear weight.

No matter what you paid for the purse, how much would you pay to own it again, as opposed to tossing it—your only choice if you don’t fix it? See if a shoe repair or luggage repair place will mend it for that.

An alternate solution, and one that might do better for a screenplay than for real life, would be to put the purse away in a closet instead of tossing it and then set about learning who, if anyone, apprentices cobblers these days. With the right sort of diligence maybe you can find yourself a boyfriend who knows how to stitch leather. Think of the themes: economy, the death of craftsmanship, old mentor/young student, romance. Top-grossing movies have been based on less.

@andrew No, they’re glued on there or something. The strap may have come out, but those floppies are certainly not going anywhere! :)

Google maps didn’t come up with a shoe or luggage place near me, so I tried a tailor and they said they might be able to help. I’ll have to bring it to them so they can see about it, but she said they have names of other places if they can’t do it.

In addition to shoe and luggage repair, there is also

Uphostery repair. They have the heavy duty sewing machines, too.

A shoemaker will fix that, if you think it’s too expensive and you do decide to throw it out, make sure to back-up your data!

@markyy Lol!

Well, the tailor couldn’t do it, but gave me the name of a local shoe cobbler, who works out of his/her house (I don’t know if it is the husband or the wife that does it). The woman told me it’ll probably be about $8.00. I was definitely thinking it would be more than that, so that’s good. I just hope they do a good job, and I’ll certainly give a tip or something if they do. Thanks everyone!