November 2019 – Page 2 – L'ensemble du jour

September 20, 2019 – Pro Tip (OOTD #565)

Published on November 8, 2019November 10, 2019 by lensembledujour2 Comments

Pro tip: fashion for the professional workplace is hard.I don’t know if that’s really a tip so much as it is an observation. I struggle to come up with work-appropriate silhouettes that aren’t receptive and boring every single day. It’s so hard. What am I supposed to do if I’m not allowed to wear ripped boyfriend jeans and mini-skirts every other day?

I think professional clothing is a little unfair to women — “workplace” fashion tends to de-emphasize sexuality. You’re supposed to look plain and unassuming: dark colors, conservative silhouettes, plain cuts. You’re supposed to “not be a distraction to men” or whatever (as if men can’t learn to just…not be distracted). You wear slacks and cardigans and turtlenecks, which, while they can be made to look attractive, are not necessarily the most flattering,

Men, on the other hand, get to wear suits, which are perceived as the most flattering attire for their gender. Think about it — men wear suits for every fancy occasion. They wear them for prom, for weddings, for funerals, and, of course, for work. You see a man at work in a suit and you think, “oh, that man is dressed up.” You see a women at work in a cardigan and you think, “well, she looks appropriate.”

It goes both ways, though. Women are culturally allowed a greater diversity of styles than men are — we can wear dresses and skirts and crop tops and heels and a whole number of types of clothing that men can’t wear without looking “effeminate.” Sure, men wear suits to work, which, due to their associations with formal occasions, tend to make them look dressier, but then they also don’t get to wear wedding gowns and club wear and prom dresses.

Or rather, society says they can’t. I think they can if they want. As they say, “we’re all born naked and the rest is drag.”

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life this semester in Washington, DC. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Forever21

Top: thrifted, Ecseri Bazaar in Budapest

Skirt: River Island

September 18, 2019 – Elle Woods Style (OOTD #564)

Published on November 6, 2019 by lensembledujour1 Comment

I feel weird even venturing to compare myself to Elle Woods — it feels almost sacrilegious.

Legally Blonde was one of the very first PG-13 movies I was allowed to watch with my mother. I can’t even remember how old I was — maybe fourth grade? But fourth grade-Meilin loved that movie — probably more than it deserved from an artistic standpoint. It’s a cute chick flick, sure, but it’s no cinematic masterpiece.

It was Legally Blonde and not Law and Order that glamorized the idea of being a lawyer for me. I’m sure both are wildly inaccurate depictions of the profession, but as a kid, I was way more drawn to the idea of wearing pink suits and carrying scented documents than I was to dramatic courtroom showdowns.

I’m not ready yet for the dramatic courtroom showdowns (I need to like…get into law school first), but, with my 9-5 internship, I have an excuse to wear cute professional outfits every day.

Herein lies the challenge — making my everyday professional outfits “cute.” It’s not hard to put on a pair of trousers and a blazer each morning; it’s hard to find a way to make a pair of trousers and a blazer unique and interesting when you wore basically the same thing the day before.

I’m learning, though. I’m discovering that the key to cute professional dressing is bright colors and fun accessories. If you’re relegated to wearing “work-appropriate” cuts and silhouettes, the best way to dress things up is to play up your color, pattern, and texture palette. I like wearing scarves and jackets to add layers to basics, like this plain blouse. A patterned skirt or sparkly necklace can help too.

I may not wear pink every day, but I at least try to dress as fashionably as possible, even for a boring day at the office desk. Elle Woods would approve.

Jacket: Ann Taylor (thrifted)

Skirt: The LOFT

Blouse: Forever21

September 14, 2019 – Out (OOTD #563)

Published on November 4, 2019November 6, 2019 by lensembledujour4 Comments

(I hope you don’t mind, but I’m trying to transition from blog posts every day to every other day for now. Every day was a little difficult to keep up with — and besides, now that I’m only a month and a half behind with my posts compared to three months behind like earlier this year,I’m not as concerned about catching up on a summer’s worth of travels that I might forget)

I love to be out. I don’t so much love to be out late into the night.

I think I’m becoming my parents. They also don’t like to be out late at night, whether it’s at the movies or the mall or a restaurant. It was like pulling teeth sometimes to convince my dad to take me out Black Friday shopping when I was a kid.

But now, I’m the one whose teeth need to be pulled in order to get her to be out past 10pm. I don’t understand what happened. I’m still capable of pulling a late night at the office or the library if I slam coffee, but being out that late for food? Or a drink? That’s going to be a no from me.

Sometimes, though, my body and my brain can be bothered to agree, and I can manage to get myself to go out at night. As was the case here, with the “Art All Night” event in the Shaw neighborhood.

It was a cute idea for an event — basically, a bunch of shops and restaurants kept their doors open later than usual on a Saturday night so that people could come do art-related activities. A gym had a canvas painting station, and a restaurant had some postcards to decorate.

I think what excited me most of all, though, was the plant shop giving out free flower cuttings. There was only one per person, but no one else in the group wanted theirs, so I got to take them all. I was so pleased, that I even bought a succulent that I definitely don’t need. I guess their marketing techniques worked.

Sweater: Vintage (thrifted)

Skirt: Pull and Bear

September 13, 2019 – Over the Moon (OOTD #562)

Published on November 2, 2019November 5, 2019 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

As a kid, I always liked the Mid-Autumn Festival more than Chinese New Year.

Now, I’ve never actually gotten to celebrate either of these holidays in China, so I don’t know what they’re like when they’re celebrated in the culture from which they originated, but for me, as a child in Kentucky, the Mid-Autumn Festival (or Moon Festival, if you prefer that nomenclature) was superior.

When I lived in Louisville, the local Chinese cultural association put on a party every year for the Mid-Autumn Festival that blended traditional Chinese festivities with American fall fair activities. I distinctly remember that there was a corn maze and pumpkins alongside the moon cakes and lanterns. Honestly, as a kid, I was probably more excited about the corn maze than I was about the moon cakes — I don’t actually like moon cakes that much.

But I was feeling nostalgic this year because I kind-of fell out of touch with Chinese culture after I moved to Lexington and, while I’ve tried to reconnect with it a little after I’ve come to Notre Dame, a college campus in the middle of Indiana is admittedly not an ideal place to do that.

And so I thought, Washington DC, a city with its own Chinatown, might be a decent place to try again.

And like, I suppose it wasn’t bad. DC’s Chinatown is small — literally, just a part of one street, compared to New York’s or Chicago’s, which are full neighborhoods. I went too late to see any of the actual festivities, but I found a little Chinese bodega where I could buy a moon cake and I got a picture with the famous Friendship Gate. It’s not much, but it’s a start.