A few weeks ago, I got an email about J. Crew having an extra 40% off their final sale special. This isn’t unusual, despite the fact that the count is pretty much: Tempting J. Crew Sale Email – 0, Me – 456.

Hope springs eternal in the J. Crew email marketing department, apparently. Either that, or their autobots don’t care whether I buy or not.

Still, despite my dismal buying record, I almost always do the following:

  1. Go to the J. Crew website and click on final sale.
  2. Sort it according to price (lowest to highest, of course).
  3. Comes to terms with the fact that, unless I want a leopard print belt, a pair of striped socks, or a sleep top, even with an extra 40% off, I’m not getting anything under $20.
  4. Torture myself by going to Page 2 of results (where everything suddenly doubles in price) and spot a gorgeous silk dress—originally $240—for only $95. That means with the extra 40% off, that it will be less than $60, and when else am I going to find the perfect J. Crew silk party dress for less than $60? (except the next time I get one of these emails, of course).
  5. Put the gorgeous silk party dress in my cart, steeling my resolve to splurge for once because I will most certainly wear the tar out of that dress.
  6. Get to checkout and remember their $9 flat shipping rate. Oh yeah. And tax. So that’s closer to $80 now.
  7. Picture myself wearing perfect silk party dress to a wedding.
  8. Picture myself dropping hors d‘oeuvres (probably something wrapped in bacon or some such equally greasy substance) on my perfect silk party dress.
  9. Picture the dry-cleaning bill.
  10. Picture my chagrin after I refuse to pay exorbitant dry-cleaning bill and instead attempt to DIY clean my perfect silk party dress. Only to ruin it, of course.
  11. Picture myself sadly waving goodbye to almost $80.
  12. Picture myself frantically attempting to DIY a bow of the correct proportions and style to cover bacon grease stain, which has spread thanks to my DIY cleaning efforts and now covers a good portion of the lower front part of my dress. Crotch-bows are all the rage these days, right?
  13. Remember that I haven’t even been to a wedding or any other perfect-silk-party-dress-worthy event in over a year.
  14. Resolve to make more unmarried friends.
  15. Press X on upper righthand corner of J. Crew website page and beat a hasty retreat to Goodwill.

Clearly, it’s a long, mentally exhausting, and completely fruitless process. Which is why it’s nothing short of a miracle that today’s Wardrobe Wednesday features, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR pieces of J. Crew clothing (and there were 4 more in the box).

If you follow on Facebook and Instagram, then you probably saw this little teaser that I posted after receiving an entire box of J. Crew goodies—only one of which had any fit issues (and I am, of course, already scheming a DIY fix).

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So…what kept me from clicking the X this time? J. Crew FACTORY. It’s basically their outlet store, except online. I already knew it existed, but this was the first time they had had anything worth buying for decent prices (and only $5 flat rate shipping). Plus the extra 40% applied there as well. Somehow, I ended up with 8 items in my cart, only one of which cost more than $10.

Want to see what I got?

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{“Artist tee“: J. Crew, $9, Skirt: Goodwill, $3; Boots: Dillard’s, $27; Bag: GW, $3; Belt: GAP, $3; Cute 5-year-old: Me, Priceless}

I wore this outfit on a birthday date (his, not mine) with my husband. After seeing the “tucked in” pictures, I’m not a huge fan, honestly. So I tried a more casual look. Thoughts?

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P.S. Anybody want a tutorial on the braid crown?

Next up, we have this week’s “church outfit.” Word of advice: if you normally let your hair air-dry, try to avoid half blow-drying it on a Sunday morning. Or it will end up flat in some spots, Texas-sized in others, and just all around floofy. And trust me. Floofy is not a good thing.

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I had a reader comment a couple of weeks ago on the fact that, for her, the jury was still out on my habit of shopping in the girls’ sections. So, if that was you, you might want to avert you eyes right now!

{Top—actually a dress from the girls’ section a la my GAP “shirt dress” from a while back—J. Crew, $10; Skinnies: Target, $15; Shoes: Goodwill, $3; Bag: Fossil/GW, $4}

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I posted a teaser of this next everyday outfit on Instagram with the question, “Is there such a thing as too much color?” My answer? Oh, c’mon. You know it was a resounding NO. But you guys seemed to agree.

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{Tank tops: Old Navy, $4; Cardi, J. Crew: $9; Pants: J. Crew, $18

Of course, that was before you saw a pic of the full outfit with the obnoxiously bright flame-colored corduroys.

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So, now what say you? Too much? Or just bright enough?

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{I promise I slept the night before these pictures were taken, no matter what the bags under my eyes are screaming to the contrary}

If you’re wondering about my opinion of the J. Crew outlet quality…well, all of these clothes are brand new and have only had one wash each, so the jury’s still out on durability. But the materials seemed durable, and I didn’t notice any difference in the stitching/finishing quality from the items I’ve tried on in conventional J. Crew stores.

Which means that, for the prices I paid, I am one happy customer.

Disclaimer: J. Crew is not paying for my children’s college education or anything else cool like that because of this post (although, really, let’s face it—they totally should). I just thought I might share the cheap-pretty-clothes love.

Linking up with The Pleated Poppy

11 Comments

  1. Floofy! Really! Your hair always looks great, ok I admit, your did look alittle tired in some of the photos, but lets face it, you are nursing twin girls, and caring for another three! As I have said before you do colour like nobody else I know.. in fact I am so conservative its not funny but if it works for you I say do it. I am sure American clothes prices are so much cheaper than Australian prices. Even our thrifty shops charge bigger prices. But thats my bad luck not yours so I say you go girl.

  2. Loving the J Crew outfits! That is definitely one of my “if-I-had-all-the-money-in-the-world-I-would-buy-everything-in-this-place” stores. It’s great to know that (at least once in a blue moon) their factory store has such great deals 🙂
    And your last outfit? Perfect pops of color. Love it!

  3. haha! I LOVED your reasoning in the 1-15. It totally describes my train of thought. In fact, I had an item in my JCrew shopping cart just a few days ago and X’d out the window cuz I just couldn’t do it. I want one of their chambray shirts so much, but just couldn’t pay the price! I do love your reasoning even better! Yes, I do need more unmarried friends too…..my days of dressing in a lovely dress are a distant memory 🙂
    I cannot believe you got such great things from their Factory Outlet…..awesome! And such amazing prices…I’m drooling! Love all the pieces in the pics 🙂 I think the “Artist Tee” works tucked in or out….like the little bow on it too.

    The turquoise top is such a pretty color on you. And the flame cords…well, they are great! I have some a very similar color (from TJMaxx – not JCrew). And I will have to pair mine w/ turquoise…so lovely 🙂

    Thanks for the smile today! I always say “I heart JCrew” even though I don’t own a single thing from there….LOL! Maybe someday….until then, I’ll keep checking Goodwill for some cast-off JCrew stuff 🙂

  4. I LOVE those pants! I almost went and bought them myself – but then I remembered that I have an embarrassing amount of blue jeans upstairs (I wonder why?) and I needed NO more pants.

    Great finds!!

  5. Love the last outfit, definitely my favorite! I like the casual look of the first one better, the aqua children’s dress looks….just that, a childrens outfit, but pretty color!

I love hearing from you guys!