how to graffiti your handbag: balenciaga graffiti city bag DIY

i’ve wanted the balenciaga graffiti city bag for a WHILE. since it came out, almost two years ago. and while i have been lusting after it all this time, i never quite bit the bullet on a regular city bag sans grafitii. as my boyfriend puts it, “the regular (city) bag looks like you’re ready to head to country thunder”. and while i may agree with him a little but, when justin bieber posed with his balenciaga city bag, i knew it was time to get one. and then when i was thinking about how could i make a city bag my very own, the idea to graffiti it in my own ideas came to mind.

after trolling eBay for what seems like an eternity (probably all of about a month) i finally found the perfect one. a pale, pale green balenciaga city classic for only $140. it was fate! i snatched it up without even thinking (well, only after using a helpful website to check over the authenticity of the bag). after that purchase, i grabbed some paint markers with high reviews from amazon and then all i had to do was wait for everything to arrive.

i got to work making my design on a photo of the bag. i would say this was the most important and the most time consuming step. i wanted my designs on the bag to be close enough to the original for people to see the inspiration but still make my bag completely unique and unlike anything else out there. most of the “city bag” graffiti i kept, but everywhere there was “balenciaga” branding i changed to my name! after all, i want to be advertising myself, right? the front was pretty cut and dry. the back was where i really had to get creative.

the back is where i could let all of my creativity shine. on the original bag, at least in some versions, there is a big “paris” graffiti motif on the bag. because at this point in my life I have only been to paris once, i decided to change that to “chicago”. i kept the original squid and smiley face from the original balenciaga design, and added a star just because. on the front, there is a zipcode which is to my favorite place in the entire world, taganga, a small town in colombia.

the steps to do this are pretty straightforward. the paint markers work so well, that i’m now thinking of all the other projects that can be done with them. for all of the large graffiti lettering, i outlined in black to really make it pop. the original bag from balenciaga was all a black color, and since mine was this pale green, the bag needed that little extra touch. i even painted over the metal bits of hardware on the bag and LOVE how it turned out, especially the pink ones. watch the tiktok below to see the full process of the bag, from start to finish! also, the paint markers that i used from amazon are linked below.

products used in this article:

watch the tutorial on tiktok:

@costenking

finally sharing my new DIY bag!!! ##balenciaga ##balenciagacity ##handbagcollection ##handbag ##pursetok ##pursecollection ##DIY ##bagtok ##bagcollection

♬ original sound - Costen King