Let’s just get this out of the way: we weren’t paid, comped, perked, hugged or high-fived for writing about Fab.com. We purchased everything we talk about in this post with our own moolah, and our opinion is biased only by the fact that we are very cheap & very picky. That’s how we roll.
Let’s also get this out of the way: Bradley doesn’t give a crap about flash sale sites, but I’m obsessed. So when someone sent me an invite to Fab.com, I signed up and found myself completely hooked. It’s sort of like Gilt Groupe meets The Foundary (two other obsessions), but waaaaay more well curated from a designer’s point-of-view.
I basically stalked the site every day, and then one day I found a couple of things that even Bradley agreed were too good to pass up. So we put in an order and a month later — yes, a full freaking month later — we got a box in the mail:
Cuuuuuute branding! I loved the stickers on the box and the gorgeous heavy paper cards inside. But, uh, I was a little peeved that it took an entire month to arrive. Are they shipping from the moon? I would totally understand a week or two — but a month is kinda ridiculous.
On to our purchases:
That is what Fab.com described as a “100% recycled leather kangaroo desk accessory”. It features a couple of pouches to hold whatever random stuff needs containment. Think pens, keys, paperclips, loose change, etc. The pouches are large enough to hold an iPhone and charger. The mouth is made to hold post-its or stamps.
I’m a sucker for anything that can get me organized, so I was sold. I snagged it in a cheerful yellow for $22. The MoMA Store sells it online for $38. With shipping, it ended up being just under $28.
Worth every cent. I can’t say much for the quality of the leather because it doesn’t look much like leather after being painted. It feels really durable, though, and the rivets aren’t flimsy. I ended up putting all of my pens in one pouch and using the other as an iPhone holder while I work.
Here’s where things get a little more meh. We found and loved these two prints from Rococco-LA. Here’s what they looked like on Fab.com:
Source: Fab.com
Source: Fab.com
Now, when I see “print,” I think screenprint. And these 11×14″ prints two are pretty sweet screenprints, right? We got both for just under $58 including shipping. They arrived a month later (boo, hiss!) and this is what we got:
We’re super disappointed. For starters, they’re not screenprints at all. They’re just prints as in from an inkjet printer. Sure, they’re on fancy archival paper, but I wouldn’t pay $58 for something printed on a frikkin’ inkjet printer. I could do that at home.
Also, both printouts are suuuuper pixelated:
It’s hard to photograph, but the images are really blurry and low-quality printouts. And the colors are nowhere near as bright and bold as what we expected. Even the black looks really washed out:
The worst part was that one of the “prints” arrived rolled up in a cardboard tube. It’s all bent and warped from being crammed in there.
We’re trying to flatten it out by setting stuff on it, but there are ripples on the paper that aren’t going to come out.
The octopus lady doesn’t look so bad at a distance:
All in all, we were super happy with the kangaroo and super disappointed with the crappy prints. We feel like the kangaroo was a great deal since it’s a good quality product that’s exactly what they described on the site. We think the prints were misrepresented and we can’t even return them since fab.com listed them as nonrefundable. The fact that it took a solid month to ship our purchase was also really lame.
Will we ever buy from fab.com again? Probably not. But one of us is going to keep checking in every day to get ideas and inspiration for stuff we can buy elsewhere.
While we’re in the office, check out the organized closet:
At the bottom: some home workout gear.
On the shelves: IKEA boxes holding all kinds of crap that, until recently, was scattered through the house.
I even whipped out the label maker to get everything looking crisp:
Not gonna lie: I love that label maker like it was my first-born child. I love it so much I named it Martha and gave it a whole drawer all for itself. Yep. Totally normal behavior there.
Is that a little black night stand? I don’t think I remember that before. The closet looks nice. Now come do mine please.
Thanks! The night stand was one of our moving-day-scavenger finds circa 2008. It used to be a hideous shade of grandma green and we stripped it, stained it black, and put it to work as a little dresser.