Aallyn Review - Ingrid

Hello friends! I'm doing a series of reviews as detailed in this post. This post is for two of the three bags I reviewed from Aallyn - the Ingrid crossbody in Biscotti and Woodberry. I also got the Elara bag in Blush, but forgot to take a photo before sending it back.

Photos link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-TQuZ48DUMS41xo-qzCxJs8nM2Wj3SIh?usp=drive_link

These bags got my attention because I was looking for a color dupe for Chloe's Woodrose (I have a bag in that color and adore it, but ended up not liking the bag itself). Elara in Blush looked similar... and then the Ingrid looked cute too, and the Biscotti and Woodberry colors looked gorgeous and unique online. So I basically bought all 3 bags for their color, hoping the styles would be cute too :)

The Elara I barely took out - I could tell the color was less interesting than I wanted, and as I feared, in person it looks more like the least-flattering shapes on the website. To my memory it DID turn into that 'fortune cookie shape' a little bit, but... usually in a stiff, unnatural looking asymmetrical way. It was also WAY wider than I expected. It was an immediate no.

The Ingrid bags were a much cuter style - my first reaction is that they were WAY bigger than I anticipated even knowing the measurements - but wearing them, they didn't feel oversized like I expected they might. It also seemed like it fit a good amount of stuff, so I was pleasantly surprised. The biggest reason I didn't them is, again, because the colors were VERY different than the photos indicated.

Most of the photos of the Biscotti portray it as a light, delicate Beige - but in person, it is MUCH darker. There is one picture of someone wearing it on their website that I noticed looked darker, and I worried that this might be the case - but then I saw a customer photo (see links) where it looks paler, so I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately it was the darker color in person - my first photo is mostly accurate, but even some of my photos, it comes out lighter looking. The Woodberry also seemed like it might have been a darker, elegant, unique color - but it was pretty uninteresting in person. I might have kept one in the colors wowed me, but unfortunately now.

I was also interested in wearing the Ingrid across my chest - there's another customer picture in the links that inspired me, and a photo of me trying to wear it that way. Unfortunately it felt pretty clunky in person, and hard to access inside the bag.

On to quality - these bags are not super great quality leather. Personally I think the 40% off Black Friday price (I think the sale is still going) was about fair. They're not awful, but they're a little plasticky feeling (although they also felt very durable). IMO the leather was more well-suited to a more structured bag like the Ingrid, where I didn't mind it, but I thought it was extremely poorly suited for the Elara. I mentioned also disliking the Smaak Amsterdam leather (although for completely different reasons)... but if I had to keep one, I'd choose the Aallyn Ingrid bag first, the Smaak Kim and Sophie bags second, and then everything else is far below that. These definitely felt like objectively the lowest quality, but were not my least favorites overall.

The hardware was non-remarkable. I found that the clasp on the Ingrid bags was REALLY hard to close when the bag was empty, but as soon as I put even a few things in it, it closed just fine. This is surprisingly considering how structured the bag is, but hey. I also disliked a LOT how the zipper compartment inside jutted out so far into the bag, and the strap felt awkwardly a little too thick (did not feel awkward on my shoulder, just didn't like it stylistically).

Hope this was helpful!