J.Crew released their first round of early fall arrivals last week and for the first time in several rollouts, I was in the “love” camp for a lot of the items. I very rarely place full price orders on the first day of release and I placed a few for this week! Sadly, all of the items I had my eye on were backordered (which I suppose gives me some time to think about them) but the first item to arrive were the Harper Patent Flats in Garnet Flame. These shoes also come in Soft Desert, Caravan Blue and Black.

I am a complete sucker for anything in the garnet color family. Perhaps it’s my January birthday, or my 90’s teenager self (my favorite colors were maroon, hunter green and navy!) It was the color my bridesmaids wore in our wedding and well, I just love it.  And…at a price point lower than the Viv flats, I was sold. I’m not sure if they’re phasing out the Vivs but I guess it’s a possibility since I don’t think I saw any new styles this past rollout. I only have one pair of Vivs and several pair of the Factory counterpart Emery flats. I tried my best to capture the color of these shoes but I found it very difficult to photograph! First up…right out of the box.

J.Crew seems to be going with the new script logo on their shoe boxes and the dust bag…Ilike the change from the block lettering. The biggest difference I see out of the box compared to the Vivs are the square toe box, which after trying them on I believe is a way to make them look slimmer. They are very slim looking out of the box but do not feel tight on my feet. I ordered my almost always J.Crew size of 9.5 in these shoes which is also my Viv and Emery size and they were perfect.

As you can see, there is not a lot of toe cleavage, but there is some.

And here is a side by side with my Viv flats. I didn’t realize that I only own one pair of Vivs…and the metallic ones are clearly very worn. So…you can see an example of how these look after constant wear for a year (I’m admittedly pretty hard on my feet). And you can see that the square toe box actually creates more toe cleavage than the Vivs.

For me, an understandable concern with shoes as pointy as this is the inevitable bending that happened with my silver Vivs. I’m hoping with the dark color of these shoes that won’t be a concern.

Here’s a side shot (I’m so bad at getting these photos).  I also wanted to compare the color to my Martina wedges in Cabernet so I compared those as well. Aside from the Martinas being a little dusty (oops) the color of the Harper flats is definitely a bit richer, but they are very, very similar. The Harper flats have more of a polish in my opinion.

In my opinion, these are keepers. My Vivs definitely took a bit of breaking in and while these do seem comfortable out of the box, I anticipate that they could be problematic for some people with the more constricted shaped toe box. I personally love the patent leather but I would love to see these (and the Vivs!) in a plain leather. They’re definitely a fall/winter color and most of my cold weather items are packed away but I know these will incorporate well in to my wardrobe for work and will look just as good with a pair of jeans. I also recently purchased the J.Crew Factory Quilted Vest in Red Currant and these are a perfect match!

As an aside, I’m surprised we haven’t seen a full price promotion at J.Crew yet, so while I’m glad I snagged a few things, I’ll definitely be waiting for a promotion before I indulge in anything else for Fall.

So, what do you think? Have you tried the Harper flats? Love? Too pointy? Would love to hear what you think and thanks for visiting!

I purchased the J.Crew Quorra Ballet Flats in dark cedar during one of J.Crew’s recent 40% off promotions. They were on promo sale + the 40% and I’ve been eyeing these flats since last season. Admittedly, my first choice was the gold ones but of course these weren’t on sale but I don’t own any camel colored flats and I thought these might be a nice sandal alternative flat in the summer time that are work friendly as well. Here’s the website stock photo:

And here they are in real life…out of the box, they’re a very attractive slim ballet flat. I was a bit concerned that my not so slim feet would look bad in them. We’ll get to that in a minute. I tried my usual 9 1/2 in these and while a little snug at first, I wouldn’t go any larger. That’s pretty much my universal J.Crew size, which is a 1/2 size larger than what I wear in most other brands.

Back of the shoes…this is my favorite part, I love the ties.

As you can see, they’re very flat, not much of a heel. The website description states a “cushioned insole” but I couldn’t feel or see much of a cushion.

Oh, AND they match my Tory Burch Robinson Tote which has not yet seen the outdoors yet due to our lovely winter weather. If we were judging on looks alone, these would be keepers.

So now we come to how they look on. I will say…I think the photos are a bit deceiving in the sunlight but judge for yourselves.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what I was expecting but I think I expected my toes to be not quite so transparent through the shoes. BUT THEY HAVE HOLES IN THEM. So yeah, I guess it stands to reason that you can see through them. Maybe if I didn’t have dark polish on my toes I wouldn’t care as much. And I was standing in direct light next to the window.

They look better from the side and I am trying to take these photos solo so it’s a little tough getting the right angle. But as you can see, the shoe is molding to my toes. I’m not sure if a 1/2 size up would fix this or not. I think I’d be slipping out of them. While there isn’t a lot of padding in them they do seem comfortable on, I’m not sure about any long distances but they seem ok for some casual walking around.

And then…when you take them off, you can still see where your toes were!

Not sure why, but look at the shoe on the left. It’s like my toes are still IN THERE. This is bothering me.I think I just need to get over it because that’s how the shoes are.  I’m not 100% on these but it’s probably the rapid snow that’s accumulating outdoors and the fact that they’ll probably sit in their box for another month before I can pull them out. I think they’ll be cute with capris or jeans as well as summer dresses. And finally, here’s one more closeup of the pattern on the shoes:

Full price, I’m not sure they’re worth it. Promo, plus 40% off? I’m a little more inclined to keep them. So what do you think? Love or not so much? Would love to hear what you think and thanks for visiting!

I was lucky enough to find the J.Crew Everly Mirror Metallic Pumps in silver on eBay last week for 60% off their current retail price. They were advertised as worn once which I was ok with since the photos didn’t show any wear except for some scuffing on the bottom. I actually ended up making an offer on the shoes which was accepted, so was fairly pleased with my bargaining skills. I’ve been drooling over them for weeks now, but of course I didn’t start fixating on them until after I’d spent my summer rewards and J.Crew was running cardholder promos.  I went with my usual J.Crew shoe size (9.5) which is a half size up from my usual shoe size. I had seen reports that they were running small but I often find that when I go up an extra half size they’re too big.

The shape of them looks weird from the top, maybe because I already stretched them out with my feet. The toe box on these is definitely small, and they’re a little snug on me but I’ll deal with it. The heel height feels the same as my leather Everlys which I find comfortable to walk in. As you can see, due to the small toe box there’s a fair amount of toe cleavage. I’m telling myself I’ll be ok with these but ask me again after I wear them for an entire evening.  The mirror silver is definitely trendy but I plan on rocking them as long as I can.

They are definitely an attractive shoe and I can see pairing this with a lot of things in my closet. I don’t know how much they’re going to stretch but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. It’s not worth the hassle of trying to track down a half size larger in these shoes (currently sold out online) only to find out they’d be too big. Which I definitely think they would be.  The silver finish seems substantial so hopefully they will keep and I will have to be very careful with the heels since that always seems to be the first part of my shoes that I destroy.

And here’s a sneak peek of how I plan to style these shoes for an event I have in the near future.

So, what do you think? Do you have these shoes or plan on getting them? Would love to hear what you think and thanks for visiting!