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Updated: Jun 22, 2023 97 Comments · by

Coffee Break: Fraîche Loafer

Coffee Break

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woman wears beige loafer against bare skin; her foot is propped on a cushion that has a brown, beige, and white plaid pattern

A friend was just extolling the virtues of her amazingly comfortable Poppy Barley shoes — it's a new brand to me, so I looked it up and love the minimalist designs.

This loafer is among their bestsellers — it's always available in black, but they have a few extra colors as part of their collaboration with Tori of FraîcheLiving.com. Poppy Barley promises all-day comfort, with no break-in period.

There are a lot of other nice details, from the “LWG certified chrome-free, vegetable-tanned, antimicrobial leather sock liner,” to the fact that they're made in a woman-owned factory in Mexico.

The pictured loafer is $205, currently available in four colors, in sizes 5-12 in regular and wide sizes. If you're in Canada, you can also visit shops in Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver; the brand also sometimes has pop-up shops.

Sales of note for 9.30.24

About Kat

Kat Griffin is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Corporette. You can read more about her here.

Comments

  1. Anon

    Are there any good books out there to help family who really don’t understand “tr*ns,” especially older people who think that because women can vote and drive cars and own property and be doctors (or astronauts or whatever) and wear pants and succeed in the workplace that this is real? I get that they struggle (and they get the L and G of LGBT) and they are not bigots or horrible people. They seem worried that any physical interventions are too similar to FGM for them to be comfortable with. And that the world is too hostile for this to ever be safe in (so why can’t private struggles stay private?). So with this age and cultural difference, what do you do? I hear a lot of “Back in X, I would be living like a man and stoned to death but here a woman can do all this” and “200 years ago in America we would all be living the lives of men if we lived how we do today.” These, I feel are also true, which makes it hard to articulate a response.

    • Anon

      I feel like the last two quotes you give on can simply be pushed back on with a gentle to not so gentle reminder that not even the person saying those ‘back in the day’ type quotes is living ‘back in the day’. Everyone in the conversation is very much in the present, everything changes over time, and expecting things to go back to some selectively remembered former time is a fool’s wish.

    • Anonymous

      I am confused by your question. Are you saying the “elders” are actually saying they think there is no need to transition from F to M because as a F in this modern world, you can get a job and wear pants and that is the equivalent of being a M?

    • Anon

      I’m having trouble following your post, but it’s not that “people don’t understand tr*ns” – it’s that many disagree with a toxic ideology that enshrines stereotypes, harms women, and hurts troubled young children and teens. I do not participate in or support a belief system that tells me that I chose to identify into sex-based oppression, that sex is meaningless, and that the reality of living in a woman’s body is unspeakable and offensive. I do not support the ideology espoused by the now-Pultizer-Prize winning Andrea Long Chu, a man who identifies as a woman who wrote that the “barest essentials of femaleness are an open mouth and expectant *sshole and blank, blank eyes.”

      It’s not that I’m not “educated” or that I “don’t understand” – it’s that I educated myself and many do not like what I learned. Many women are with me – more than ever before, in fact. I wait for the day when young girls and boys can do anything they want, dress however they like, and pursue any future they desire without being told that they are in the “wrong body” because of their interests or sexual orientation or mental health comorbidities. That’s what real freedom and progressivism looks like.

      • Anonymous

        And what about the people who were never told they were in the wrong body, but nevertheless feel intense euphoria when, for example, they tuck or bind to get closer to the body that feels right to them? The boy in college who felt uncomfortable in everything until one day he put on a denim skirt at a store as a joke? You say you want boys and girls to do anything they want … except choose their gender.

          • Anon

            This is exactly the part I don’t understand, so to speak. It always feels like reinforcing gender stereotypes to me when we say “I like to do X [wear a dress, paint my nails, wear makeup] so that means I identify as a woman.” Or vice versa. You can be a man and still do any of those things.

        • Anon

          Where is the misogyny? I am a 58 year old woman, a feminist, and I am not oppressed by trans women and trans men. I have been oppressed and subject to misogyny by white cis het men for much of my career and life. Not trans people.

          You’re not giving women much credit if you think that a bio man who feels like a woman on the inside is oppressive to all of us. Get out of here with that nonsense.

          • Anon

            (not the commenter this was addressed to) There are bad people in all groups and communities. This person is obviously abhorrent. I don’t think they represent all trans people.

          • Anon

            I’m not the 4:03 anon, but one quote by one person doesn’t represent an entire group of people (this is the first time I’ve ever even heard of Andrea Long Chu and I’m pretty well read). If you’re that bent out of shape by what one person wrote, you should probably get outside and touch grass a little more often. Trans folks are not your enemy.

          • Anon

            So is this like when a guy becomes a dyed in the wool misogynist because one woman said something mean to him once?

            Is this all you’ve got?

      • Anon

        Oh ffs, supporting tr*ns people doesn’t mean women are unspeakable and offensive. Stop with this TERF nonsense.

        • Anonymous

          She makes a reasoned, principled argument and your response is name-calling.

        • Anon

          I don’t particularly like the TERF label because I think most of these transphobic women are far from being feminists, much less radical feminists.

          I’m a feminist and extremely trans accepting and supporting.

      • Anon

        Yep. I don’t think anyone should be fired from their job, denied housing, or turned away from a gender-neutral business because they’re TRN. But I don’t agree with policies and language that erases women’s hard-fought gains. Many far-lefties will immediately label you trn-phobic for raising any questions about how the movement harms women so it’s easier not to engage in conversation.

        • pugsnbourbon

          I am so tired. I really hope this is one or two people posting a bunch of times.

          • Anon

            I doubt it. The number of women in my personal life expressing these beliefs has positively exploded just in the last two years. They’ll usually say something tentative and then when they see that I stand against misogyny, express immeasurable relief at being able to talk to someone. It’s scary.

          • Anon

            There are a lot of women who feel this way. I’m the commenter at 3:38 and none of the other comments are mine.

          • pugsnbourbon

            I’m pretty tired of anon commenters being jerks. Have some guts and make a username, at least for a particular thread.

          • Anon

            How is the word “agree” or “same” being a jerk? There is so much demonization towards women even for the most minor responses.

          • pugsnbourbon

            I was responding to the person who said I had a moral claim b/c I’m tired.

          • Anon

            It wasn’t only one or two men who threatened jK Rowling. Progressive women like myself are out here, questioning the full agenda but we are not expressing ourselves in public because of the backlash imposed by men.

      • Anon

        You don’t sound at all educated on this. You’re constructing and demolishing strawmen and probably falling for political manipulation in the process.

        • Anon

          Someone can disagree with you without that disagreement being the product of manipulation, actually.

          • Anon

            Indeed. How wild is it that statement’s “sex is real” can be tarnished as the result of political manipulation, but things like “we all have a special female or male essence on the inside” is widely accepted as truth?

      • Anon

        Another agree to some extent, but could never say this in front of my (extremely progressive) friends. I believe that people should be able to do as they please, and I fully support them transitioning or doing what they need to do to feel at peace. Where I take issue is when the other >99% of the world then is supposed to adapt vs the other way around. I am not “a person who menstruates” as my period app now refers to me, I am a woman. I am not a “birthing person” I am a mother. It’s quite ironic to me that words and identity matter so much to a demographic who is then turning around to take away words and identity from other people.

      • Anonymous

        Yes, I mostly agree with you. In my own life, I practice kindness and respect towards everyone I meet. I don’t have to “understand” or “accept” to refrain from mean or rude behavior. However, I don’t believe that I need to be forced to “understand” and “accept.” I am educated ( as much as a layperson can be) on trans issues and I don’t support much of the current trans ideology. If someone gave me a book to read to try to fix me, I’d just think you were being over bearing and disrespectful.

      • Anon

        Piggybacking off of this, if they have concerns that it’s akin to FGM, do they know that medical decisions are just that – medical- and made consensually between doctors and the patient? Most teaching/academic hospitals have good online resources that are comprehensive but not too dense (and link to the really dense stuff if someone wants to get in the weeds). They tend to do the best job of showing that being transgender isn’t something that people wake up and suddenly decide to be. One falsehood that kept getting trotted out here in Florida this legislative session was the idea that kids were having surgeries done on them unwillingly – that it was being inflicted on them by their parents. That’s simply not true and yet it seems to have picked up steam in the right-of-center world.
        I’m no expert but when the subject has come up, I explain that accepting people as they are means accepting that they are who they say they are, and some things aren’t for me to understand and I’m okay with that. I don’t understand what it’s like to be tall. I don’t understand what it’s like to want children. Those things are innate for lots of people, but not me. There’s lots about people I don’t understand. For what it’s worth, I’m sure there are still many, many people who live exactly like your parents’ train of thought (do traditionally manly things but still outwardly present as a woman, or vice versa) because it is still so dangerous to be visibly, outwardly trans.

        • Anon

          Unfortunately gender reassignment surgery based on a doc’s “best guess” as to how the patient will later develop has been inflicted on patients at infancy with full right wing support.

      • Anonymous

        I don’t think anyone is suggesting the existence is new, they are suggesting the expectation of their acceptance and inclusion is new.

    • eertmeert

      You might find it interesting to know that Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands have all done a U-turn on gender affirmation medical care – including only allowing puberty blockers with strong gatekeeping and only when enrolled in a medical study. The science is far from settled. Jazz Jennings, who underwent puberty blockers to cross sex hormones and underwent bottom surgery at 17 years old, has stated that she has never had sexual feelings and will never 0rg@sm.

      Historically, 60 – 90% of kids who suffered pre-pubescent gender dysphoria grew up to be same-sex attracted. This is a lot of kids to be rerouted from healthy sexual development into lifelong medical patient via cross sex hormones.

      I would suggest reading Hannah Barnes book “Time to Think” about the UK Tavistock clinic, and how a good number of the providers there realized they were “trnsing the gay away.” At the very least, read the Hillary Cass report to see the inherent issues with the clinic and its affirmation model. https://cass.independent-review.uk/publications/interim-report/

      Here is another post that delves deeply into the current science on the topic: https://genspect.org/to-help-trans-identifying-kids-follow-the-science/

      Also, here are some pro-trans exploratory therapsits who thread the needle on how to help the most amount of children without sacraficing their long term safety:

      https://gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/

      https://genspect.org/

      https://segm.org/

      • Anon

        It’s even more troubling when you consider that many of these kids are not receiving proper evaluation for serious issues, such as eating disorders or self-harm. We’re sleepwalking into an tragic scandal.

    • Anob

      Tired of all the bigoted trolls here but why not just tell your relatives that they don’t have to do anything they’re not comfortable with, all they’re being asked to do is accept other people’s identification. They don’t have to get surgery! They don’t have to perform surgery! Just call people the name and pronouns they ask and you’re done. I promise.

      And nobody says “everyone has a special male or female essence inside” to that bigot. That’s a total straw man. But some people (myself included as a cis woman) do have a strong identification with a particular gender. You may not and that’s great. But I don’t feel like a man just because I vote and wear pants. I’m a woman, period. I can respect when other people tell me that about themselves.

      • Anonymous

        Why is it bigoted not to buy, lock-stock-and-barrel, the discourse around trnsse*uality? A lot of it is not about opening the world to trns safety and acceptance but rather about reinforcing misogynistic stereotypes that hurt people of both sexes and erasing women. I personally am all for the first thing but vehemently opposed to and exhausted by the second.

      • Anonymous

        It’s very interesting that the people calling others “bigoted trolls” are engaging in knee-jerk name-calling, and the ones being called “bigoted trolls” are the ones making thoughtful, nuanced comments that support the innate humanity of all people.

      • Anonymous

        What creates that identification with gender and how is it distinct from biological sex?

      • Anon

        If using someone’s requested name and pronouns was where it stopped, this wouldn’t be controversial for most people. But that’s not where it stops, and it’s disingenuous to pretend that it is.

        • Anon

          It actually is. And other people’s private medical decisions. Done. That’s literally it. Oh except a single swimmer competing at elite levels who know can’t.

          • Anon

            No, it’s not. Language matters. My period tracking app now refers to “people who menstruate.” At a friends house the other day someone got looked at crosswise for asking a pregnant woman if they had found out the sex of their baby, and the response was “the baby will be biologically male.” Honestly, if I were tr@ns I would be pretty annoyed at the super left, progressives who love policing language so much that I think they’ve contributed significantly to the current backlash. Just let people live their lives is the way it should be, but not the way it is today. I’m sick of having to walk on eggshells when asking BASIC questions like “do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?” to an expectant mother.

          • Anon

            There’s just that pesky problem of male rapists suddenly identifying as women at sentencing and being welcomed into women’s prisons.

    • Anon

      I’m surprised in these conversations to not see anyone mentioning that biological sex and gender are two different things? Gender is very much a set of societal behaviors we have arbitrarily placed on people based on the approximate shape of their body at birth. I’ve never heard of people who want to remove their garden hose and become oppressed, but I know people who, given the general outlines of Personality 1 and Personality 2, choose the other one. isn’t part of feminism that every woman’s experience is valid, even if she has not had the negative experiences other women have gone through?

  2. Anonymous

    it’s finally nice where i am — what are your go-to easy meals for spring and summer? does anyone have a special cocktail for spring? I always associate springtime with rose because I’ve always ordered it the first few times each spring I’ve dined outside

    • Anon

      Seared halloumi cheese with cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. You can also make it into a pasta salad.

    • Anon

      Salads, grilling outside if you can do that, grilled or roasted veggies that are perfectly at the top of their season (can’t wait)

      I like a big salad made from butter or little gems lettuce tossed with homemade ranch, a nice grilled chicken breast (do not overlook!) cut into strips, cut off kernels from grilled corn, fresh cucumbers, and halved grape tomatoes. Yum. Also excellent with large shrimp/prawns, grilled. Penzey’s has some really good blends I like for grilled meats – north woods is probably my favorite.

    • Anon

      Tortellini salad- make a package of tortellini, add parmesan, spinach, red onion, pepperoni or some other Italian meat diced up, possibly pieces of mozzarella cheese if I have any, olive oil, a dash of Balsamic if I have it, italian seasoning, a dash of salt, a dash of red pepper flakes, and halved cherry tomatoes. Sometimes I add other veggies if I have them- green or red peppers. Put them all in a bowl while the tortellini is still slighly warm but not hot, toss them around. Perfect.

      It’s better cold on day 2!

    • Anonymous

      How Sweet Eats grilled vegetable orzo with smashed feta (I roast the vegetables in the oven if I don’t feel like messing with the grill).
      Cookie and Kate peanut-sesame slaw with soba noodles.
      Aperol spritz or Campari spritz

    • Anonymous

      I’m not really a cocktail girl but I made aperol fizzes last weekend and my husband and I really like them.

  3. Anon

    Is it appropriate to ask about pay structure in a first round interview? For context, it’s a VERY commission heavy industry where the bulk of earnings are variable. Or would you wait til further in the process?

    • Anon

      I always have that conversation up front. Interviewing is a big time investment and I prefer to make sure it’s worth it first. So yes, I say it’s fine and necessary to understand comp (at least the range and basics) before progressing.

      • AnonSatOfc

        Yeah, and most screeners (HR/Recruiters) have proactively brought up compensation in the first screening interview in my experience. It’s silly to waste everyone’s time if what they are offering will never work for you or if what you want will never be something they can provide.

    • Cat

      in this circumstance I think it’s fair so that you understand at least the basic framework (like what is base vs commission vs bonus).

    • Anon

      If it’s a dealbreaker, yes absolutely. I’m at the point in my career that I ask about hours and comp in the first conversation. I don’t work 80 hr weeks and I have a minimum comp I need to earn to make it worthwhile for me and for my family. If the job’s not a fit, I’m not going to waste anyone’s time, including my own. Even if it’s not a dealbreaker, I might ask. Especially if the first round includes a peer–like someone who has the job you’re interviewing for–I might ask that person about overall structure. That person is usually in the rotation to give you a feel for a day in the life, so a question for that person about general structure would be expected. But in general, I think it’s kind of BS that there’s this notion that the whole interview process pretends that we’re all there because…??? We love reviewing expense reports or writing contracts or whatever the job is? I mean, 99.9% of us are working for the money.

  4. Paging Perimenopause from yesterday

    I’m a little behind but just responded this afternoon (2:11 pm) to your question in yesterday’s thread about HRT for perimenopause symptoms. I relate!

    • anon

      Thanks – I’ll go back and look!

      I always appreciate when these threads come up, so that new people who are going through the changes and treatments can talk about their new experiences. Since this field is changing, and more women are asking for treatment, it is very encouraging.

  5. Anon

    Tell me about spontaneous travel plans if you’re in a busy peak period and you know it will come to an end…deal done or case ended, but you’re not certain of the date….how do you plan for a getaway? I am trying to get better at this….for example, if my time frees up from this very busy 6 week sprint, I will take a long weekend at a resort with my husband. Do you make the plans and hope for your schedule to free up or wait until the last minute and see what’s available? I can see pros and cons either way….

    • Anon

      With the caveat that I find travel planning soothing: I check to see what’s available/possible, and make several possible contingency plans, and maybe book accomodations if they’re cancel-able.

      • anon4

        Yes to all of this. Check out the website for the resort(s) you want to visit, see how far out they have availability. If you have a decent sense of when the deal will close and you know where you want to go and it’s refundable, I’d book. I’d even book options for two weekends if they’re refundable. I like to keep a running list of weekend trips we want to take. Many are places we go to ~yearly, but we add to it and sometimes repeat depending on availability.

        • Anon

          I love this. Great advice – “ I like to keep a running list of weekend trips we want to take. Many are places we go to ~yearly, but we add to it and sometimes repeat depending on availability.”

  6. So very sad

    I don’t know, man. I know this board skews pretty nasty sometimes, and it never gets under my skin, but I was so sad to see the conversation about Dooce on this morning’s thread get derailed by a nasty commenter. It was nice at the beginning of the thread to read the collective shock of women who read her blog, and to read the tributes that other commenters shared (thanks for the Washington Post one.) I’m guessing there is a lot of overlap between the OG readers of blogs in the early 2000s and the demographic here. I started reading Dooce almost 20 years ago, as a college student with no kids, yet I was hooked on her humanity and relatability. And I’m just heartbroken for her pain and the pain of her loved ones. And yes, I recognize too that she was a deeply flawed person. (As are we all.) I have lost both friends and family in the last few years to this particular manner of death, and anecdotally it seems to me like there has been a sharp increase in the numbers of middle-aged adults who die this way, and I don’t understand it, but it seems like a huge problem and I’m anguished because I don’t know what to do about it. Today I’m feeling really aware of the power of words on the internet: comments on here, posts on Dooce’s blog, or vitriol housed on places like GOMI, which absolutely dogged her and in my opinion absolutely needs to take a moment of critical self-reflection about how they contributed to a toxic dynamic around Dooce in particular.

    • Anon

      I’m a little more depressed at the vitriol and nonsense above, honestly.

      I was an early reader of Dooce and had some back and forth emails with Heather from time to time. I know she floundered after her divorce, after social media changed what it meant to be a blogger, and to me, she clearly was continuing to suffer from mental illness even after the couple of times she pronounced herself cured. I will admit I stopped reading at some point because some of what she said made me uncomfortable and I felt like I was rubbernecking at someone else’s breakdown.

      I’m so sorry for her family and that all of the efforts that she and they made to treat her mental illness finally came to this.

      • Another ANON

        Agreed. It is so tiresome to see women who express their thoughts get called names. (3rd comment of the day).

        • Anon

          Funny how when you come in to express hatred toward a group of marginalized people, other people want to call you out on that.

          • Anon

            The haters are those who are sending d*ath threats to JK Rowling. Marginalized people
            are L*sbian women who don’t want to be with people who were AMAB. Stop calling names and grow up.

      • Anon

        I was uncomfortable with the morning thread because it felt like *everyone* was rubbernecking someone else’s breakdown, even the majority of commenters who were supportive.

      • Anon

        I stopped reading the main site and mostly only read the moms site. Occasionally I check in here when I have time (like today when it was slow at work). 80% of the time I do the first comment is about how someone hates trans people or fat people. The pattern is . . . hard to miss and it’s not true of the moms site.

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