For Chicago artist Helena Kim, restoring vintage leather is a lesson …

Most weekends at the Randolph Street Market, Helena Kim can be found with her head inside the lining of a vintage Coach purse. After finding and restoring more than 30, she knows a good piece of leather by touch.

Kim, 31, has built a following on TikTok for her step-by-step videos restoring vintage leather pieces from Coach. Bringing old, worn bags back to life takes a careful hand. For West Loop resident Kim, who goes by her nickname Yoonie online, caring for vintage leather has helped her feel in touch with herself and her family.

“I started to personify these bags, and kind of like take care of them,” Kim said. “I keep getting very emotionally attached to these bags as I’m working on them.”

Kim went viral on TikTok in June 2023 with a video restoring a Coach Bleecker bag from the 1990s. Now, she has over 188,000 followers and 6 million likes on the app. Her most popular video, featuring a Coach coin purse found at Goodwill in December, has 1.6 million likes and 12.6…