Category: Fashion

September 4, 2017 – All Beige Everything (OOTD #103)

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I’m not even wearing all beige in this outfit, lol.

Look, I love the buildings here at Notre Dame – they’re beautiful, architectural, and outright works of art – but my goodness, why are they all the same color?

I’m pretty sure everything here is this same golden beige tone. And it’s very pretty, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes, a girl just wants to pose next to something that looks like a unicorn vomited on it, you know? Something like what you’d find in Shoreditch or even in the Louisville Highlands – something that’s bright, vibrant, and not beige.

(Don’t think I’m ever going to stop comparing places to Shoreditch – that place was freaking amazing and unforgettable).

For real, I’m trying to think of any buildings that aren’t either golden beige, white, or brick-colored here, and I’m drawing a blank. I guess there’s the Golden Dome, which is at the very least shiny (though gold is still a neutral), but I have no idea how to get up there. Can you even get up there?

There are a lot of buildings that I don’t know how to access here, actually. I don’t even now how to get onto the roof of my own residence hall. I feel like that ought to be my goal for my four years here – figure out how on earth to navigate all of the buildings. In particular, I want to make it to the upper floors of the basilica (are there upper floors to the basilica? There have to be – look at how tall those spires are), the inside of the main building (though I’m going to have to find a way in other than the front stairs – otherwise, I won’t graduate in four years), and the fourth floor of LaFun (I know there is one because I’ve seen the staircase…but the directories all say that there are only three floors…)

Anyway, I’ve definitely still got plenty to learn. I haven’t even made it off campus into the “city” of South Bend. “City” in quotation marks because let’s be honest…South Bend isn’t a city. I used to complain about Lexington being small and boring. Lexington is New York City compared to South Bend.

But honestly, I’ll take anything that South Bend has to offer, especially if it’s not beige.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Sweater: Forever21

Bralette: Aerie

Jeans: Abercrombie

September 2, 2017 – Irish Intrigue (OOTD #102)

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Funny – these photos come from last Saturday, during my experience at my first home football game at Notre Dame, and at the time of me writing this, I’m preparing for my second home football game.

No lie – I can even hear the band practicing from outside my dorm room window right now. They’re playing the fight song, of all things.

Anyway, last Saturday was my first ND football game experience – as well as my first tailgating experience (bar that one time I went with a friend to a UK football game), my first midnight drummer’s circle experience, my first crowd pushups experience, as well as a whole slew of other Notre Dame football tradition experiences.

It was also my first time with the Shirt. What’s “the Shirt?” What makes it so special that it gets its own capital S? I’m still figuring that out myself. The Shirt, from, from what I can gather, is a tradition for the Notre Dame student section for their home football games. We all buy this same shirt that we’re supposed to wear on football days. Most – but not all – students wore it, making for a pretty cool sense of unity for us all. Even I, a freshman with pretty much no ties to Notre Dame other than I’ve been going here for a few weeks now, felt like I was a part of some huge many-faced beast. But like…a nice beast. As long as you’re a part of it.

Some of my reading said that we’re not supposed to wear the Shirt outside of football games (at least until the end of the football season), but I’ve seen plenty of kids wearing the Shirt on regular weekdays. Does that mean those kids are just idiot freshmen who don’t know what they’re doing, or was my writing wrong? I dunno. I myself am an idiot freshman.

Since this post is being written a week after the game took place, it should come as no surprise to you that ND won. In fact, there wasn’t really even much of a doubt that we would win during the game itself – I don’t think we ever lost our lead against Temple. It was actually kind of a boring game, looking at it as just a game. As an experience though, as a fan in the stands for the first time, it was a ton of fun! I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow’s game against Georgia.

Maybe not looking forward to wearing The Shirt again though – I don’t think I’ve done laundry since last week. Lol.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Shirt: ND Bookstore

Skirt: Forever21

Choker: Madewell

September 1, 2017 – Is It Fall Yet? (OOTD #101)

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Shoot, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I haven’t posted anything here since last Sunday – in other words, it’s been four days since my last blog post. I think that’s still a little shorter of a hiatus than the one I took when I was in London…but yeah, it’s been too long.

College has been treating me well enough. That said, it hasn’t exactly been easy either – for example, I spend more time than I would like hanging out in the upper floors of the library writing papers, and less time than I would like writing blog posts. Still, I enjoy the freedom, the fewer hours spent in classes, and the exercise I get walking around campus.

It’s interesting: now that I’m living on a college campus, where there are so many people moving from place to place 24/7, I’m not sure when it’s appropriate for me to change out of my “school clothes” and into my “lazy clothes.” In high school, I wore nice clothes during the school day, and when I got home, I changed into comfy clothes (which sometimes just meant pajamas). But now, I’m pretty much always at school because my home is school. So when do I get to stop being fashionable and start looking lazy?

Speaking of fashion, this coat has quickly become one of my favorite articles in my wardrobe. Why? Because it’s one of the only coats I bothered to bring here, and Lord knows the September weather here in South Bend necessities it.

But why didn’t I bring more coats? Because in Kentucky, at this time of the year, it still feels like summer. It’s not unusual to have weather that’s still in the 80s and upper 70s – in other words, nothing that would ever require a coat. In fact, I probably don’t break out my jackets until mid to late October because I’m still able to wear shorts and t-shirts.

Not here – here, it’s been chilly and rainy in the mornings just about every day since the start of classes two weeks ago. I’m not complaining; I much prefer this to the heat we had in Kentucky (anyone who’s been following this blog since the summer can attest to that). Still, I left all of my sweaters and coats at home, and I’m really missing them right now.

In fact, I’m missing all of my clothes I left at home. I wound up having more room in my wardrobe than I thought I was going to have, so at fall break, I’m definitely going to bring some more pieces. My clothes are kind of like my children; I miss them when I’m apart from them.

Anyway, I’ve got to scoot off to Astronomy, which begins in 20 minutes, so that’s all for today! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Coat: Vintage

Pants: The LOFT

Shirt: Forever21

August 31, 2017 – It’s Casual (OOTD #100)

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I can’t believe I’ve never used that as a blog title before.

For real – blog titles are hard, and I’m not very good about being creative with them. Thus, my titles are usually some sort of dumb reference to pop culture that’ll probably be irrelevant within a few months, but mean that I don’t have to come up with anything intelligent on my own.

I spend most of my waking existence as a college student trying to fake being intelligent in class, so I figure this blog is a place where I can be myself, yeah? And  “myself” really just means being lazy and un-creative most of the time, lol.

Case in point – Thursday’s outfit. It was pretty much as simple as it gets – a white t-shirt and jeans. Granted, I like to think there was a little creativity in there, as layering the green barrette underneath and matching the suede choker to the suede shoes took some thought, but I’d be lying if I said I thought it was a masterpiece.

It’s not, and that’s okay! Not every outfit is a winner, and I’m happy so long as none of them are absolute losers. I’ve even already had some girls from my dorm start telling me that I “look nice everyday,” which is usually my goal when I move to a new place and have to establish myself as a fashion-conscious person. Gaining a reputation for being stylish is all about wearing consistently thoughtful outfits, while every once in a while throwing in a truly artistic one to remind people that you take fashion seriously, and every once in a while, having a dud because nobody’s perfect.

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

Top: Target

Bralette: Aerie

Choker: Madewell

Jeans: J. Crew (thrifted)

 

August 30, 2017 – Overslept and Overdressed (OOTD #99)

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I experienced yet another college “first” on Wednesday – oversleeping an alarm.

Thankfully, it didn’t end up having any bearing on my actual day – I still made it to class on time, got to work out for a little in the morning, and had enough time to get dressed and make myself look presentable. Still, I was definitely in a more rushed mode than usual, if the fact that I wore leggings is any indication.

Wednesdays are one of my more busy days – I have two classes back-to-back that begin at 9:30 and end at 11:30, followed by few hours break, followed up a lecture at 2:00 that ends at 3:15. It’s not bad – certainly less strenuous than high school – but it’s still a far cry from my Friday schedule, which begins at 9:30 and ends at 11:30, meaning my weekend begins before noon even hits.

This particular Wednesday though, I didn’t have as much of an opportunity to rest as usual, as I ended up working on a paper in the library with a friend from the time my second class ended to when my third began (allowing for a little break for lunch), meaning I didn’t get back to my dorm until late in the afternoon. Then, I had a little time to work on some reading and homework before I had to head back out again at 7:00, taking dinner by myself before heading out for a club meeting that lasted basically until 10:00.

But so far, I’m liking college more than high school. There’s more homework but fewer classes, which (right now) is something I appreciate. Granted, I’ve also fallen asleep while doing homework several times now, which has been super fun, but at least it’s been while sitting in a bean bag. Honestly, the bean bag may be more comfortable than my bunk bed.

As for today’s outfit, you might notice it’s not entirely different from one I posted rather early on in my blog-writing career (you know, which began a whopping four months ago). I wasn’t a huge fan with how it turned out, though, in terms of pictures, as that was from a time when I was still taking my own pictures by setting up my iPhone with a timer. Thus, I decided to remix it, taking what I did rather enjoy about the outfit – the combination of a simple black pair of leggings with the bright, colorful top – adding some new elements – the navy blazer – and then photographing it with an actual camera.

Was that my actual thought process? Or maybe I was just lazy this morning and unconsciously chose an outfit that resembled one I had worn before because I was lacking in creativity…you decide. 😉

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Chaps

Top: Pitaya

August 29, 2017 – Sketchy Night Photos (OOTD #98)

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Good lighting is key to good photography.

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to get. Sometimes, it’s 9:00 at night, you’ve just gotten back from an overwhelming activity fair, which followed after an overwhelming day of classes, and you’re just now getting back to your dorm for the first time all day.

In such situations, you might find that the sun has already gone down by the time you finally get a chance to take your pictures, and that you just have to make do with the street lamps on the sidewalk. You might also find that you have to ask one of the girls in your dorm to take time out of her studying to come outside and take pictures of you, which is just a touch awkward to say the least.

Mais c’est la vie d’un blogeur. Sometimes you have the time and the resources to take really beautiful pictures and write a long, inspired blog post – and sometimes you don’t.

The nice part about being here at Notre Dame is that regardless of how good or bad the lighting is, I can always be assured that my background will be beautiful. It’s amazing how much detail is put into each building – take, for example, the dining hall behind me in this photo.

It looks like something out of Harry Potter, and it’s even more beautiful on the inside. If it weren’t so busy all the time, honestly, I’d do my pictures inside sometime.

Sometime, perhaps, when I manage to make it home sometime before 9:00 at night.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Skirt: Zara

Top: The LOFT

 

August 28, 2017 – The First Pants Outfit (OOTD #97)

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The day I finally wear pants to school usually denotes the day I finally give up on dressing up.

I lasted a whopping five days here at Notre Dame before I reached that point.

Now, I don’t mean to say you can’t have a perfectly nice outfit and still wear pants, because you can – some of the best put-together and most intelligently designed outfits I’ve ever worn have been pants outfits. But there’s something to be said about the effort it takes to shave you legs for a skirt, dress, or even pair of shorts – and no pants outfit will ever be able to compete with the level of dedication a bare legs outfit requires.

But at any rate, I totally lacked that level of dedication today. In fact, I had a whole 30 second mental dialogue with myself this morning in front of my wardrobe, debating whether or not to go for the skirt outfit or the pants outfit. It went a little like this:

Put-together, organized, motivated Meilin: You’ll look much nicer in the skirt ensemble. Those pants don’t even fit you properly.

Perpetually stressed, disorganized, lazy Meilin: But…shaving…

Put-together, organized, motivated Meilin: …only takes a few minutes.

Perpetually stressed, disorganized, lazy Meilin: But…it’s cold…

Put-together, organized, motivated Meilin: Not all day, it won’t be.

Perpetually stressed, disorganized, lazy Meilin: I don’t wanna…

We went back and worth like that for a while, but eventually, I had to get off to my 9:30 class, and the debate had to end. The winner was, of course, the pants outfit – perhaps only because by the time I had established the opening arguments of both sides, there wasn’t enough time to shave, whether I wanted to or not.

But it was okay in the end, because wearing the pants outfit meant I got to wear this asymmetric tunic I got from Psylo, a steampunk fashion shop in Camden Lock Market in London. Camden was probably second only to Shoreditch in terms of my favorite shopping locations in London (sorry Oxford St., but you’ve got nothing on this), and it was largely due to the presence of alternative fashion boutiques like Psylo.

There’s nothing in Lexington (and definitely nothing in South Bend) like this place. I want to think that even if you’re not into steampunk fashion (which I’m not really  – not in the way some people are…I mean, I like the aesthetic, but I hardly dress in it everyday), you’d still be able to appreciate the artistry of the fashion that this store sold. The silhouettes, the designs – they very clearly demonstrated the effort and creativity that their creator put into their work. These pieces had heart, and that’s something you rarely find in a chain store like Forever21 or J. Crew.

So was the shirt probably overpriced for the materials that it was made of? Well, yeah. But originality is expensive, and I’m willing to drop more money on a piece if it’s something unique.

Whoops, didn’t mean to wax poetic about the artistry of fashion for so long. Guess I’ve been watching too much Project Runway, huh?

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Shirt: Psylo

Pants: Altar’d State

August 26, 2017 – Waking Up To A Choir Of Angels (OOTD #96)

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The chaos never quiets at Notre Dame.

Saturday, which began my first weekend alone here, saw me waking up late after having been out at party (that I lasted a whopping 30 minutes at before calling it quits) the night prior. I actually awoke to the sound of the choir practicing practically outside my window on South Quad – prompting me to wonder if perhaps I hadn’t made it home Friday night, and that maybe angels were welcoming me into heaven.

Nope, I’m just at Catholic school, and the full choir practicing out on South Quad at 9 AM in the morning is a perfectly normal occurrence.

Maybe it’s not perfectly normal – actually, it was part of a celebration for Notre Dame’s 175th anniversary, which happened to fall on my freshman year. They did a 3 mile walk in the morning, followed by a mass (which was what the choir was practicing for), and then a picnic for everyone to enjoy.

Needless to say, I hit up that picnic in the afternoon – there’s no way that I, a broke college kid, am going to ever refuse free food.

It’s very pleasing to be able to finally consider myself amongst the proverbial “broke college kids.” I even made a post dedicated to that aesthetic for yesterday’s OOTD – check it out here.  “Broke high school kid” just doesn’t the same weight, doesn’t conjure up the same image. It’s like up until college, no one takes your complaints and general teenage angst about life seriously – then, in college, you finally gain the ability to be pessimistic and grumpy with the adults.

Other than the picnic, my day was pretty much empty to do whatever I wanted. I can’t imagine I’ll continue to have this much free time as the weeks go on in the semester – can I? I don’t even know. I feel like I’m doing something wrong, not having work or homework or some kind of task that needs to be done looming over my head, but I guess that’s just the way it is for this first week of school.

I even had time to go out with some girls from my dorm, pictured below:

I’m sure the stress will set in eventually and I’ll have plenty of time to wallow in my own misery then! And no one can tell me I can’t because I’m an adult now with responsibilities and problems with the best of them!

I kid, of course. I can wallow in misery without any stress to trigger the reaction!

Kidding, again.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: H&M

Shorts: PacSun

Jacket: Forever21

Boots: Ralph Lauren

 

 

August 25, 2017 – Lazy College Student Aesthetic (OOTD #95)

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I’ve been in college for a whole four days and I’m already getting lazy with my clothes.

For real, today I woke up, gazed into my tiny closet, and came to the conclusion that none of the nice outfits I had come up with before I came to Notre Dame were right. I don’t know, it was Friday, I was feeling lazy, and I just wasn’t the mood to wear a skirt (and for some reason, it seemed like all the outfits I had come up with prior to starting school involved skirts).

So instead, I came up with a lazy day outfit with shorts, a baseball tee, and an Adidas windbreaker. I don’t know if it really counts as full “lazy college student style” – I think that requires sweatpants and a greasy topknot at the very least – but I definitely looked less put-together than I had for the past few days.

My hair was definitely pulling off that lazy college student aesthetic though. It’s been a while since it’s been washed, and it’s seen better days.

So far, I’ve had enough motivation to get myself out of bed at 7:30 every morning to go running, giving me about an hour to get dressed and get ready before classes begin at 9:30. It’s been pretty nice. We’ll see how much longer I manage to keep up this motivation – I know that in my senior year of high school, I slacked off on the running quite a bit by spring semester – but for now, I’m liking my routine.

At the end of the day, I headed over to the football field for a showing of Rudy. I’ve actually never seen that film before, so it was pretty cool to see it for the first time on the actual Notre Dame football field. It was particularly weird seeing all of these campus locations that I pass everyday as backgrounds and settings in the movie, though, haha.

Also, did you know that the dude who plays the titular character in Rudy also plays Sam in the LOTR films? I didn’t realize it until after the film was over, when I was looking it up on IMDb (because that’s what I do), and I saw the cast list.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Zumiez

Jacket: Adidas (thrifted)

Shorts: H&M

August 24, 2017 – In Which Meilin Looks Like a Southerner For Once (OOTD #94)

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How Southern am I?

Well, for starters, this dress is Lilly Pulitzer.

It’s funny – for the longest time, I’ve detested the title of “Southerner.” I hate sweet tea, country music, and I don’t have the accent (actually, ask some of my friends, and they think I sound vaguely British – but I don’t).

For context, my father is from Philadelphia and my mother is from Chicago, so neither of them are really “Southerners,” and they made no attempt to raise me as one. Even in my elementary school (which I visited recently – check out the blog I wrote about it) , most people were not really Southern into culture, despite the fact that we were in a rural part of Kentucky. I might have had one friend growing up who had the stereotypical accent.

But when I moved to Lexington in seventh grade, everything changed – suddenly, everyone had that “Southern belle” quality about them. All the girls wore Vineyard Vines and carried Lilly Pulitzer planners and got excited about going to University of Kentucky football games in the fall.

Now, I have an appreciation for Southern culture, don’t get me wrong – I love Lilly Pulitzer (in moderation), I think fried chicken is delicious, and I love how the people all smile at you when you pass them on the street. But that was never me, and I think that was mostly because it was never my parents either. They were city people, and even though I’ve never lived in a real city, I think I am too – or at the very least, will be someday.

So it was weird when I came here to Notre Dame and there were actual city people here, actual people who could claim to be from cool places like New York and Chicago and LA. Southerners are actually a minority here – maybe because the snow that South Bend gets scares them off – and I find that I’m actually missing them quite a bit. It’s odd because for so long, I couldn’t wait to get out of the South (for the record, Kentucky’s not even that Southern – it’s not like the Deep South), and now, I want to go back. I still don’t call it “home” – the closest thing to that would be New York, and I’ve never lived there – but I felt myself craving a little Southern charm here in South Bend.

So today, I wore my Lilly Pulitzer dress in honor of being a pseudo-Southerner and kind-of-sort-of-missing it. It’s bright and colorful and feminine, everything a typical Southern belle girl at my high school was. I don’t know if any of the South Bend people were impressed with it (one girl told me I looked like a stylish kindergarten teacher…I think that was a compliment?), but it reminded me of Kentucky and that’s all I needed.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Dress: Lilly Pulitzer (thrifted)

Jacket: vintage