2018 – Page 18 – L'ensemble du jour

January 9, 2018 – Strange Requests (OOTD #197)

Published on January 11, 2018 by lensembledujour2 Comments

“Hey, uh…would you mind taking some pictures in front of your garage door of my outfit? It’s just the uh…light is fading and I need pictures from today…”

That might have been one of the strangest requests I’ve ever made for the sake of this blog. But sometimes it’s 5:30 at night in the middle of winter and the sun is setting and you haven’t had any pictures taken of your outfit yet – and if you’re like me and you do outfits of the day every day, that’s a problem.

So I swallowed my pride and made the awkward request, tolerated the awkward look from my friend Amanda when she repeated “you want me to take pictures of you…in front of my garage?”

She agreed, thankfully – not that I really expected her to say no, but it could’ve been worse. I’ve had a few times at Notre Dame when I’ve asked someone to do my pictures for me and they’ve actually had a class to get to, so they agree but with reluctance. That’s always super awkward.

I’m not looking forward to next semester in the sense that I’m going to have to find all new people who are free during my lunch break to indulge my narcissism and take pictures of me. There’s that sort of weird conversation where I have to bring up that I have a fashion blog, and they give me that “oh, so you’re that pretentious type…” look, and then I have to prove that I’m not that pretentious type. Or admit that I am but that I’m still a tolerable presence.

In other news, Amanda and I went to the outlet mall in Kentucky, and it was a nice little day trip. We went on a weekday afternoon, so it was super quiet and almost eerie – but not in a bad way. Made me want to be a retired old lady so I can go to malls on weekday afternoons whenever I want.

January 7, 2018 – Average Teen at the Mall (OOTD #196)

Published on January 10, 2018 by lensembledujour3 Comments

The mall used to be one of my favorite places in the world.

Maybe it sort of was for every middle school girl – you know, when you’re in that phase when you’re just starting to shop for yourself, so getting to pick out clothes and put together your own outfits is a whole new experience? I distinctly remember getting really excited when my mother would agree to take me to the St. Matthew’s mall in Louisville because it was one of the only places to have both a Forever21 and a Hollister, which back then were my two favorite stores.

While malls aren’t as cool and interesting as they used to be for me, I do still rather like to shop. I find, now, that I tend to buy fewer things at a time – as a kid, I could go on a mall shopping spree and come out with five complete new outfits, but now, I tend to only buy a few things at a time.

Uh…minimalist living, I guess?

Alright, so not really – I love my excessive possessions and consumerist lifestyle as much as any American – but I do think I’m getting a touch better. Before I went to college, I actually went through my closet and got rid of a ton of stuff, which was something I hadn’t done for a while.

In fairness, I do believe I wear most of my clothes, even if they don’t get worn often. Take, for example this jacket – it was my dad’s originally, but he handed it down to me, meaning it’s huge and barely fits and I probably should have let him just give it to Goodwill. Regardless, I really liked the oversized look, and even though I have to roll up the sleeves like eight times and can’t move my arms normally when I wear it, I still choose wear it sometimes. I would just hate to get caught in a situation where I had an outfit that just needed an oversized denim jacket and I had given it away because I didn’t wear it often, you know?

…and that’s why I will perpetually live in clutter and disarray!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one! 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: thrifted

Sweater: thrifted

January 6, 2018 – Amelia Earhart, Is That You? (OOTD #195)

Published on January 9, 2018January 9, 2018 by lensembledujour1 Comment

Ha, I wish.

Sadly, I am no pilot – I can scarcely drive a car, can you imagine me trying to fly a plane? I’m confused enough with a vehicle that turns and accelerates; I’d be a wreck in a vehicle that turns, accelerates, and changes elevation. Probably literally.

So while I will likely never live out my dream of flying an airplane – or driving a car without crippling anxiety – I can at least dress like I do, right? And by dress like a pilot, I mean wear a brown leather jacket and sunglasses.

As much as I’d love to break out one of those cool aviator hats with the goggles, that would probably take things into the costume territory, which would have been slightly inappropriate for the day’s adventures like grocery shopping and putting away Christmas decorations.

On the plus side, such everyday aviator chic as what I sported in this outfit is not likely to end up with me disappearing in the Pacific Ocean. I’m also probably not going to go down in history as a beloved female pilot and feminist icon, but you know – you can’t win them all.

I’m a little sad I didn’t have my actual aviator sunglasses on me for these pictures, but I left them at school and I won’t be flying back there for another week. No, I will not be the pilot – I’d like to actually make it back to school rather than crash landing in a frozen cornfield somewhere in Indiana.

Jacket: Altar’d State

Shirt: Free People

Jeans: American Eagle

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Fickle Flatlays

Published on January 6, 2018January 6, 2018 by lensembledujour3 Comments

Flatlays are hard to make.

I do them both for these posts and for the sake of having something other than just pictures of my face for my Instagram. I do find that they’re worth the effort, though they don’t get nearly as many likes as my outfit posts – it would just be boring to have a feed filled with nothing of pictures of me, so the flatlays break up the monotony.

They also look very nice on my Instagram page in terms of aesthetics, which, to me, is very important. I know there are some fashion bloggers out there who can do well with nothing but posting pictures of their outfits, and good for them, but I feel like maintaining an aesthetically pleasing feed is just as important.

You’ve got to be able to scroll on someone’s Instagram page and be struck with how pretty the colors and patterns all work together without giving each post more than a half-second glance. I mean, sometimes that’s all you get on Instagram – a half-second of someone’s time – so everything needs to look beautiful from a glimpse.

So flatlays are significantly less “authentic” snapshots of my life than my outfit posts – I mean, I do wear all of those outfits, but for flatlays, I usually just set them out, take pictures of them, and then put them away.

Because let’s be honest – I never have this many pretty things laid out prettily on a pretty background at once. I’ve never even used some of those things – the Blick Art materials book is only there because I liked the mint color, and the Christmas cactus is actually my mom’s and not mine. I’m significantly less organized than my flatlays would have a person believe, but what else is new?

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one. 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!

January 2, 2018 – Goodwill Glamour (OOTD #191)

Published on January 3, 2018January 3, 2018 by lensembledujour1 Comment

One of the best parts of this whole fashion blog thing is the sheer variety of how many locations I’ve been to trying to find a good background for my photos.

I’ve been from places as glamorous as Abbey Road and the Tower of London to as un-glamorous as a public dumpster. Today’s location, the outside of a local Goodwill, probably ranks up there with the unglamorous locations.

But you wouldn’t necessarily know it’s the outside of a Goodwill unless I told you, and that’s part of the fun of it. It’s something of a challenge trying to find new and unique backgrounds every day to go with my outfit; I can’t just have the plain white of my garage door every day, can I?

It’s been terribly bitter cold recently in Lexington – like, 5 or 10 degrees every morning and only going up to the teens during the day. To do today’s pictures, I threw off my coat for about three minutes to get my dad to do these shots, and as soon as they were done, I put my coat back on as quickly as I could. I guess that’s nothing compared to how cold it is at Notre Dame right now, though. I think it was -15 the other morning.

Speaking of Notre Dame, how about that Citrus Bowl win from the other day? Alright, so admittedly, this isn’t a sports blog, and I have no legitimate insights to offer about their plays. The fourth quarter was certainly exciting though.

Or so I heard. I actually napped through it.

So I’m a lousy Notre Dame fan. So I’ve only ever gone to the football games, and so I didn’t even go to all of those. I still like to wear the clothes and pretend I’m a passionate devotee. If I’m going to be a fake, at least I know it.