J. Crew Rugged Twill Briefcase – $88.00 (Orig. $128.00)
Currently sold out, but J. Crew has been known to be sold out then not sold out of items before.
Took about a year of thumb twiddling and one heck of a sale, but the J. Crew Rugged Twill Brief finally found its way to the Dappered home offices this week. This thing has been reported to have more than a few quality issues. How many? We’re talking alleged Yugo territory. But it looked good enough online that for $70 it was worth a shot.
Didn’t think it’d look like this when it showed up.
We all get that photos thanks to lighting and other factors can sometimes be less than completely accurate. Admittedly, it can sometimes be a battle to get photos here on Dappered to reflect what an item looks like in person. But this thing is much, much darker out of the box. There’s not much contrast between the fabric and the leather. It’s almost like they shipped the wrong bag. But if memory serves, its only ever been available in the one “dark chestnut” color, so in theory, these are one in the same.
They might be in the same family, but I doubt they’d be neighbors in the Crayola box of 64.
Immediate impressions on quality: the leather doesn’t feel amazing, but it looks pretty good for under $100. The darker color was a surprise, but it’s not a deal breaker. It’ll be added to the long term test pile to see how it holds up.
Ever get something and have it show up looking vastly different in person? BananaRepublic.com seems to also have issues with these color/shade anomalies. Leave it all in the comments section below…
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whoa. I almost bought that bag, glad I didn’t. doesn’t look anywhere near as good as the web site photo. I’m no photographer, but it doesn’t even look like it’s a lighting thing, it looks like a completely different bag.
They may have made a running production change in the canvas material. I bought one in early December and it’s much closer to the mustardy website photo than the one in the snapshot (though I saw it and bought it in-store, so I knew exactly what I was getting into). The quality issues are, however, true.
Yep, same here. I think the canvas material changed color, because the one I bought last year looks like the one in the picture. Maybe they should update the picture?
Quality issues are true. My strap is falling apart…
Wow, that’s a huge difference. The contrast between the leather and the fabric is completely lost. That’s too bad. That being said, I love you Dappered, but I can not wait for this bag to stop being featured on the site.
We love you too!
I kinda like the darker version, looks a little snazzier
I like the darker version as well.
I would throw the whole bag in the washing machine. Hopefully it would come out looking slightly abused and awesome.
I actually looked at these in the J. Crew store. I think there are two separate versions of this bag, one darker and one lighter. That might explain the difference. When I saw it in the store they were two different prices too so I don’t think it is a production run issue.
I actually bought this bag last year and it was very close to the picture on their website, perhaps they changed the color or material they used in the past year? Also in terms of quality, mine has broken in quite well… perhaps a little stretching in the canvas pockets on the outside but that’s because I put a lot of stuff in there sometimes. No qualms here.
There are several places where the color will shift:
1. First, the product is photographed under certain lighting and with a certain white balance.
2. The shot is then color-corrected by the retoucher before being given to the retailer.
3. Your computer monitor is probably not calibrated, unless you work in imaging or graphics.
4. The product arrives at your house, and you view it under different light than it was photographed under.
5. You take a new photo with different light and a different white balance, then post it online to compare.
Of course it’s going to be off.
El Commento, there’s different, and there’s not even close. This is not even close. See other comments about a production run change.