Crude, but in a gentle fashion (9)
I believe the answer is:
inelegant
'crude' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'in a gentle fashion' is the wordplay.
'fashion' indicates anagramming the letters.
'a'+'gentle'='agentle'
'agentle' is an anagram of 'elegant'.
'in'+'elegant'='INELEGANT'
'but' is the link.
(Other definitions for inelegant that I've seen before include "not the cultivated sort" , "Awkward - graceless" , "Eglantine (anag)" , "Lacking refinement" , "ungainly" .)