Moni Moni bad bad I'm mad mad over quality

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adoptastray

adoptastray

springtime lavender
O.G.
Aug 15, 2006
2,361
7
#1
I ordered the Moni Moni (MM) eden and savana bags from a reputable online boutique. I totally get it that MM bags are distressed and may even look dirty--that's all part of the washing process (Blur bags are like that too). MM's website says "All Moni Moni bags are handcrafted in Italy and later washed and tinted with an innovative technique that renders them supple and vintage looking. Imperfections are what makes them special, much like a pair of great stone washed jeans."

Imperfections that I don't find special are bad hardware, bad seams and badly punched grommets. The savana bag that I got in plum had a section of one of the handles where the leather wasn't stitched so it was flapping up. The eden bag that I got in red had a bad side cinch buckle and a grommet where the punching tool slipped and cut the leather. The worst flaw in the eden was that the lining in the rear (very useful) large pocket was caught up in the stitching of the zipper so the effect was of having part of the pocket stitched close even when the zipper itself was totally open. I attached pics to show what I mean.

The retailer gave me a refund. I have seen some MM bags that are beautiful with no flaws so this means there's some erratic quality inspection going on at MM. They should have caught this stuff before it went out. Sad, because the bags are really, really cool looking.

Soooo, If you're in love with a MM bag just make sure to buy it from someone who has a good return policy and check it over well before using it.
 

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#2
OMG, you are kidding?! i was just saying in another Moni moni thread that i want to get the savanna in plum. but you wouldn't recommend it? which site did you order from?
 
#4
Omigosh! That looks terrible!! I'm glad you got a refund! I have two Moni Moni bags and I agree that the leather is amazing, but those quality issues are unforgiveable. The brand is still relatively new so you'd think they'd try to protect their reputation and do a better job of quality control. I hope you find some Moni Moni bags without any flaws.
 
#6
Im so sorry to hear that. What website did you buy from? I understand that all manufacturers have bag issues and sometimes things can slip through quality control especially when your sending out hundreds of orders. But the fact that the website didnt notice anything almost seems worse.

Before I bought first bag just recently, I called a bunch of stores that carried their bags and they had nothing but great things to say about the bags. A hand full of them even said they had a hard time keeping them in stock.
 
#8
The site was NOT Adasa and I left the site out because they were politely apologetic and gave a refund. In fact, about 20 minutes after I started this thread the retailer phoned me and asked me to take out that they were horrified from my first post which I will do as soon as I can figure out where the little edit tool is!! I can only guess that they heard about this post from someone connected to MM--what a really, really weird experience.

I guess I'm of the opinion that sewing/construction flaws are more the manufacturer's responsibility than the retailer's. As a counterpoint example, on another thread in this forum someone posted a nice exchange they had with Rebecca Minkoff's staff. The TPFer had inquired about issues with Minkoff's bag hardware and got this reply regarding small brand growing pains:

"My name is Jacquelyn and I work with Rebecca Minkoff. I appreciate you asking us this question to get the true information. Last year we had some growing pains and found out that some of our hardware was chipping. We fixed this in September of 2006, and have switched to all brass hardware. You have not one thing to worry about!"

That's such a refreshingly great attitude IMHO!

Like I said in my first post, if you like the MM bags just be sure to buy where you can easily exchange or refund. The MM bags are cool looking.

So what do other TPFers think? Is it worse that the retailer didn't catch the flaws? Does the fact that the manufacturer is processing hundreds excuse them? I had always thought it was the manufacturer who employed people to check the construction. I didn't think that retailers check incoming orders as to whether pockets work, etc and so on but then I'm not in retail.

Thoughts?


 
#9
I agree with you that there should be inspection of all bags at the manufacturing facility before the bag ever leaves the building. It's called quality control.

Thanks for sharing your experience with Moni Moni. Peggy
 
#12
if these bags are handcrafted how can they miss it. Its not like your using a fast moving machine to do the work. If they are handcrafted as they say that they are that leaves plenty of time to catch the mistake.
 
#13
The amount of defects on just one bag (the Eden) is shocking. It's completely unacceptable. I can see the makers missing one minor defect, but there are three distinct obvious defects on that bag.
 
#14
urbanwrunlmtd said:
if these bags are handcrafted how can they miss it. Its not like your using a fast moving machine to do the work. If they are handcrafted as they say that they are that leaves plenty of time to catch the mistake.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's such a good point. I hadn't thought of that! Even if it's challenging to catch some flawed bags when sending out hundreds of orders, the handcrafting should catch it. Unless, I suppose, the people making the bags are under time pressure. I came across this Bloomberg article today that was a real eye opener. Bloomberg.com: Spend

There's a couple other threads on quality issues with the brand:
http://forum.purseblog.com/handbags...lendor-arrived-today-3725.html?highlight=moni
http://forum.purseblog.com/handbags-and-purses/moni-moni-splendor-pics-3803.html?highlight=moni

It seems that people who get MM bags and haven't run into any defects are thrilled with the look and styling of the bags. I do agree that they are very cool! I'll repeat myself and say buy a MM bag if you like them, just make sure you can exchange it if you need to.
 
#15
Hello to all the members of this forum.

We are the online retail website that sold the Moni Moni bags to this customer. We would like to provide you all with the following information.

We stand behind all the merchandise we sell from the many great designers we carry in our online store. Occasionally, a handbag, a piece of jewelry, a dress, etc. has a manufacturing imperfection. This happens to all manufacturers, even brands selling for thousands of dollars. And on rare occasion any website or bricks and mortar store may inadvertently sell/ship one of those items to their good customers. And like any good retailer, we are disappointed when it happens. What is truly important is how a retailer deals with the situation. In this case, we took back the merchandise immediately with no questions asked and provided our customer with an immediate refund. Reputable designers/manufacturers make it possible for their retailers to do that by standing behind their products. Moni Moni did that for us 100%. They were truly concerned when we told them of the problems. They wanted all the information we could provide and asked us to return the bags to them, so they could communicate whatever the problems were to their manufacturing site in Italy. And they provided us, the retailer, with an immediate refund as well. We believe this is exactly how it should work. We strive to provide that level of Customer Service to every customer, every day. And we are pleased to have so many happy customers who love their Moni Moni bags.
 
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