My First (and Last) Polene Experience

Ahhh we've got a lot to talk about here. I've been shocked (in a bad way) about my experience with Polene so far and wanted to chronical it all in case it helps anyone else who's on the fence. FWIW, I'm also a leather worker and create my own handbags, so I've got some new, and *very* strong opinions on the quality Polene provides.

I've been eyeballing Polene forever. Their styles are so unique but are still so simple, beautiful and neutral. The Numero Dix has been at the top of my list, but I kept finding myself putting that ~$500 toward high-end luxury instead.

After Christmas, I hopped on Polene's website just to see what I could see. Lo and behold there was an announcement that a price increase was happening on January 6, and I thought it was a sign that I was in the right place at the right time. 2024 saw about a ~20% price increase, and with the recent investments by LVMH and the explosion in Polene's popularity, the writing seemed to be on the wall that a similar increase was going to happen in 2025.

So....I stocked up.

Ordering
A lot of things were out of stock when I placed my order, but somehow pretty much everything I wanted was available. The Cyme was completely sold out in both sizes and there were only 1-3 colors to choose from in all the other styles. There was only 1 Tonca left, which was in the Duo Maple colorway. It wasn't my first choice and I was worried the color would be too peach-y, but I gave her a go anyway. With that being the only color left in stock, it also seemed to say to me that Polene was holding back, or not restocking, inventory until after the price increase.

I ordered the Tonca first. Even though the Dix was the style I'd had my eyes on forever, the Tonca was calling to me somehow. I placed my order online with no issues and paid a $20 shipping surcharge. I was kind of annoyed that a mid-luxury brand doesn't offer complimentary shipping, but I wasn't letting $20 stop me from purchasing.

A few hours passed and I still had other bags on the brain. I kept rationalizing the purchase of a few more pieces with the idea that I'd never be able to buy them at this price again, and that the value would only increase. So, countless YouTube reviews later, I went back for more. Long story short, I chose the Numero Dix in Camel, the Beri in Chalk, and the Numero Un Mini in Taupe.

I was even more annoyed when going to check out the second time. I expected to pay an additional $20 in shipping again, but I found that Polene charges a $20 shipping fee per item, regardless of if they're shipped together.

Tonca: $599.06
- $540 purchase price
- $39.06 taxes
- $20 shipping

Numero Un Nano, Beri, and Numero Dix: $1,700.93
- Numero Un Nano purchase price: $470
- Beri purchase price: $480
- Numero Dix purchase price: $580
- Sales tax: $110.93
- Shipping: $60

Shipping
I placed both orders on January 2. On January 10, I received an email stating that there was a slight delay in processing orders due to their annual holiday closing. On January 15, I received the first DHL shipping notice, on the 16th I received a second, and on the 17th I received a third. Polene does not link the tracking number to the item or order, so I had no idea of knowing which shipment contained what item(s) or if the 3 parcels completed the order. Once the items were shipped, the delivery itself was timely.

BUT......

I wasn't prepared for clearing customs.

Duties & Fees
Rookie mistake, I'm sure. I've only ever purchased luxury goods from within the United States, so duties & fees didn't even cross my mind. Not to mention I also paid sales tax at checkout for each item, so it really didn't cross my mind. After receiving the initial shipment texts, I received 3 separate texts from DHL, one for each shipment, stating that duties were owed before the parcel would continue its route. I actually thought it was a spam message at first and didn't even open it until I got the alert for the second parcel 😅 The messages looked like:

IMPORT DUTY PAYMENT IS REQURED. The amount you need to pay is $x.

For the first parcel it was $63.52. The second was $57.66 and the third was $107.06. Again since tracking numbers weren't tied to the item shipped I had no idea of knowing which amount was being charged for what item (since duties are tied to the value of the item within the parcel). I was also getting a little nervous of the idea that I ordered 4 items, but had only received shipping and duties notices for 3. I assumed/crossed my fingers that 2 items were in a single package, but the fact that a customer has to wonder if that's the case is mind boggling.

The process of paying duties itself was easy. DHL sent a direct link for payment, you use your card, and they send you the receipt. After paying duties for all three packages, they were delivered the next day (I also live within a few miles of the airport DHL uses for my region, so this might not be the case if you don't have the same nearby).

Not only was there no way of determining what duties were being charged to which items, once I actually received the packages, the duties charged based on the information on the waybill didn't even match the contents of the parcels....(more on that next)

Unboxing
If you've checked out the posts' photos, you might have noticed that my math isn't mathing. I ordered four items, but have six boxes 🤔 The first box I opened was the smallest and contained the Tonca. The second box I opened was the biggest and contained the Numero Dix, the Numero Un Nano, and the Beri. When I realized I had everything I ordered in front of me, but I still had another package to open, my jaw hit the ground and "NO THEY DIDN'T" squeaked out of my mouth.

Yes. Yes they did.

Some how, some way, they sent duplicates of the Numero Dix and the Beri 😱 This actually isn't the first time it's happened - I ordered a Solo Stove a couple years ago and ended up with 2 on my doorstep - but I was (and still am) shocked. I can only assume that 2 people end up pulling the same order at the same time and ship them both, not knowing that someone else was already working it. But if that's the case, it still begs the question of why 2 items were in one shipment and 3 were in another? No idea, no clue, but I was like dang why can't Louis Vuitton mess up this bad 😂

Materials
After the initial shock had settled, I got to unboxing and the Tonca was first. The box was nothing special, but in its defense - it's a box. It has a neutral, simple off-white speckling with "Polene" embossed, but the material of the box itself is meh. Just standard cardboard and I'm fairly certain I've felt a shoe box feel the same. There's no weight or substance to it to give the packaging a WOW factor. Inside the box, the Tonca was tucked into a basic canvas dust bag, and was wrapped in a single piece of tissue paper. Again, nothing spectacular to make the unboxing experience memorable.

My initial/knee-jerk responses when I got to the Tonca:
- Eyeballing it in the box: "Oh, that's cute!". "The color isn't too peachy at all!"
- Picking it up from the box: "Wait, why does the strap feel like foam?"
- Still picking it up from the box: "Ew, and why does it stink?"
- Giving her a good sniff: "Straight up smells like plastic"
- Putting it back in the box: "You're joking, right?"

I hesitantly opened the other boxes, praying that this would be a one-off and the others would be better. Unfortunately, they were not.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I work with leather every single day. I've got hides upon hides in my own supply, all of varying styles and species and qualities. I know what full grain leather feels like, I know what it smells like, and I know how it behaves. It's rich, it's luxurious, it's dense, and it undeniably smells like leather. "Foamy" and "smells like plastic" never has, and never will be, how you describe full-grain leather.

Every single handbag - all freaking six of them - smelled exactly the same - like plastic. Not even a hint of leather smell. If these bags were made from full-grain leather as Polene claims, all other factors aside, they should smell like leather. I do think the bags are made of some kind of leather, but incredibly low quality leather. The only leather I've worked with before that felt just like foam was bonded leather - and that's essentially taking tiny bits and scraps from other pieces of leather and bonding them together. IF by some chance they truly are made from full grain leather, it is processed so damn much that it removes almost all leather qualities.

I understand that those who don't have experience in the leatherworking world would think the quality is great, and probably wouldn't even give the smell a second thought. But the lack in leather quality was instantly noticeable to me and immediately took all value away from the bags.

If you're going to charge a premium for your products, don't take shortcuts.

After waiting almost 3 weeks to receive the items and paying over $200 additional in unexpected duties and fees on top of the $2,000+ I'd already spent, disappointed was an absolute understatement. I knew almost immediately that no matter how cute the bags were, I wouldn't be keeping any of them. There is no way in hell I could justify spending $500+ on any one of these bags knowing that the material was 💩.

If the quality of leather isn't an issue for you, then maybe you'll still like Polene. The stitching and the hardware were fine, so I have no gripes there. Functionality is a whole other story though.

Tonca
The Tonca is a major PITA to open. Because the closure is two overlapping layers, you essentially have to use one hand to hold the bag open, then use the other to retrieve what you're looking for. I was able to put my iphone 15 Pro Max inside though and still would have had room for my essentials. Materials aside, the impractical design of the bag's opening makes it more of a nuisance than a worthwhile $560 purchase.

Beri
The Beri was the dark horse in the collection. I almost didn't order the style because I really didn't think I'd use it (I'm more of a low-maintenance and versatile bag girl), but she is obscenely cute and is the perfect little shoulder bag for a night out. Wondering if there's a way to reverse engineer this one and make it out of *actual* full grain leather because it's by far my favorite.

Numero Un Nano
The Numero Un Nano was also a PITA to open before I realized that the top will still latch without the gusset snaps being closed. If the gussets are snapped closed, retrieving anything from the bag is next to impossible and it's impractical to have to use both hands to unsnap it every time. You can just leave it unsnapped though and it still looks just the same. Materials aside, it's also an insanely cute design. There is a mini pocket on the backside that's useful for absolutely nothing that I can think of.

Numero Dix
The one I thought I wanted the most turned out to be the least inspiring of them all. I know it's a super popular bag - and yes it is still beautiful - but there are so many crescent bags on the market now that I felt the Dix lacked a bit of pizzaz. The Tonca, Beri, and Un are unique in their shapes, but the Dix is not. Along with the fact that it was the most expensive, yet still made of the same garbage materials, I couldn't justify keeping it at a $580 price tag.

Customer Service & Returns
We've made it this far and still haven't gotten to the biggest headache of all - Polene's customer service.

Back to the ~2-week timeframe between when I placed my orders and when they actually shipped. I started having some doubts as to whether I *really* needed 4 new bags in the timeframe that none of them had shipped. I emailed Polene on January 13 to inquire if the Tonca order could just be cancelled since it hadn't yet been processed. Polene responded to that message on January 17, conveniently after it shipped earlier the same day, stating they couldn't cancel it because it had already been shipped. OK fine - no big deal. I knew a lot of places won't modify an order after it's been placed but figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

After I knew I wasn't keeping any of the bags, I initiated returns for all 4 items. For Polene's returns, you have to submit a return request online, which then has to be reviewed and approved by their team, which they state in their email will be completed within 4 business days. I submitted the return requests for both orders (the Tonca individually, and then the Beri/Numero Dix/Numero Un together) on January 23. The return for the 3 items was approved the same day - January 23. It's now January 31 and I haven't heard anything back on the Tonca's return approval status. Not only would 4 full business days have given them through Monday 1/27 to provide an approval/rejection status, but I sent them an email on Tuesday, 1/28, to inquire on the status and have heard nothing back.

Mind you, their return policy is that the customer has 15 days after receiving the item to send it back. I initiated a return within 1 day of receiving the items and I'm now within 5 days of the return timeframe. I plan to take the first three to DHL today at least, but that still leaves me with a $540 purchase that I've gotten no response on, well after their committed response timeframe.

Remember how I mentioned they charged $20 per item for shipping? Interestingly for a return, they charged $20 per order. Further confirmation that the per-item shipping costs are inflated from the get go.

Also....remember how I ended up with two extra bags that I didn't pay for? (Yes, I double-checked my receipt to make sure I wasn't charged). I even told Polene about them and asked how I could send them back because I was *that* turned off by the entire experience. "Yes! Please send them back!" they said - "but it would be at your own expense".

Like that's a joke right 😂

Also, FWIW, the duplicates and the Tonca I'm still waiting to hear back on are two separate and independent orders, so I don't think it's a matter of them holding the Tonca over my head in order to get the Beri and Numero Dix back.

Closing Thoughts
I'll be keeping the extra Numero Dix and the Beri. Expecting your customer to incur a financial loss because of the company's mistake is insanity. I've only used the Beri so far, and like I mentioned before I love her overall aesthetic. But knowing what I know now, I would never purchase it again and have zero intentions of shopping Polene in the future.

If you're comfortable spending your money on sub-par materials in exchange for a cute design, Polene's for you. Also, if you're comfortable spending your money with the understanding you'll have to jump through hoops to get it back, Polene's for you. If you'd rather your money go toward a product that's made without cutting corners and support a company who actually prioritizes its customers, look elsewhere.

Oh, and all of this to say I feel duped 😂 Here is the actual price increase that happened on January 6:

Tonca: +$20 USD ($560 -> $580 USD)
Beri: +$10 USD ($480 -> $490 USD)
Numero Un Nano: +$0 USD (no increase)
Numero Dix: +$40 USD ($580 -> $620)

Numero Dix - Camel Numero Un Nano - Taup Beri - Chalk Tonca - Duo Maple