abercrombie – Page 5 – L'ensemble du jour

January 30, 2018 – Art Student Aesthetic Squared (OOTD #214)

Published on February 2, 2018August 13, 2019 by lensembledujour5 Comments

On Tuesday, I found myself in something of a pickle – I couldn’t find a good opportunity for someone to take pictures for me.

It’s not so much that there weren’t people I could ask – I’m always surrounded by people, so in theory, I could always just ask a random stranger – but I never found myself in a good situation to get a friend to do them for me. My typical Tuesday lunch friend was too busy to meet with me, the people I ate dinner with went too late to get good lighting, and I didn’t really feel comfortable asking someone to go out of their way to help me, so I found myself at 8pm with no outfit photos.

In that case, I decided to take my photos myself. I took my phone, my watch, and a pencil case to prop my phone against, and headed to Riley, the creepy haunted art building.

I actually had some work to do on my still life for my Drawing class, so hangout out at Riley wasn’t just for this blog. When I arrived in the drawing studio, there were still some people there, which forced me to actually focus on my art for a few hours until the people finally left.

At last, once everyone was gone and I was alone in the room – around 10pm – I was able to set up my camera on top of a drawing table, and, using my watch’s remote photo-taking feature (a true lifesaver here) to take what I consider are some decent photos, given the circumstances. I even managed to get a few shots with the depth perception on.

What I love best about these shots is the giant artwork in the background. I actually have no idea what it’s supposed to mean, or what class it was for, but it’s not a doorway or a brick wall, which means it’s totally unique in comparison to what I usually get for my photos at this school. I get some street art vibes here, actually, which, if you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll know if my favorite kind of background.

If I ever find myself in this pickle again, I’ll definitely swing by Riley again late at night to do my pictures. Maybe I’ll even manage to get the Riley ghost in one of my shots one of these nights!

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: Evan Picone

Shirt: J. Crew

Sweater: Abercrombie (thrifted)

Pants: The LOFT

January 25, 2018 – Shoe In (OOTD #210)

Published on January 28, 2018 by lensembledujour2 Comments

These poor shoes get so much wear.

I don’t know if you pay attention to the shoes I wear in my OOTD posts – and it’s totally fine if no one does – but I basically wear this same pair of black Clarks boots every day.

I’m serious. Go back to any given outfit post on this blog – take this one or this one for example – and you’ll notice that the same black pair of shoes are featured. And even before this pair of black shoes, I had another pair of very similar black shoes that I wore until they fell apart – and I mean like literally fell apart the sole had fallen off when I finally threw them away.

I’m just not really a shoes person, I don’t know. Is that ironic? Like, I easily fall into the stereotype of a fashion-obsessed teenage girl (which I would argue should not at all carry the negative connotations that it does), but I don’t fall into the shoes-obsessed teenage girl subcategory.

These shoes just go with everything so easily – there are few outfits they don’t go with. They can lean classy or grunge-y or preppy or hipster depending on the context I put them in. In this outfit, they lean more classic, with a touch of hipster thrown in there with that strange Hawaiian-esque mobster shirt.

Speaking of this outfit, I literally put it together in five minutes while I was running out the door already five minute lates to my first class on Thursday. Yep, I’ve already made it to that state in the year. It’s barely been two weeks in, and I’m sleep-deprived enough to start considering skipping classes. I won’t, but like…I definitely want to, especially some of those seemingly pointless ones where the professor posts the PowerPoints online after class.

Jacket: Forever21

Shirt: Thrifted

Jeans: Abercrombie

January 18, 2017 – Just Bro Things (OOTD #205)

Published on January 22, 2018 by lensembledujour2 Comments

Note to self: menswear + pixie haircut + minimal makeup = Meilin looks vaguely like a guy.

I don’t really think there’s anything particularly wrong with that – just that looking like a dude isn’t really what I’m personally after.

I forget what a difference in appearance this new haircut makes for me. With long hair, I really never had to worry about how masculine or feminine I looked; I could go out in guys’ clothing with no makeup and still look very definitively female (maybe not particularly nice, but female). Now, with the pixie cut, I have to be careful to actually wear lipstick, put on earrings – you know, the culturally-determined feminine things – to look feminine.

I guess it especially doesn’t help that the jacket I’m wearing here was found in the boy’s section of a thrift shop, and I’m wearing so many layers of clothing (it was a cold day!) that whatever vague hint of a feminine figure I have is hidden.

In fairness, I’m like, three feet tall, so I don’t think anyone’s ever going to actually mistake me for a male. And if they did, it probably wouldn’t be the end of the world either; I’m just a little self-conscious about how this new haircut makes me look. It’s taking some getting used to, you know?

I think part of it is that I’m going back to being brunette after having had unnaturally-dyed hair so long long. I was so used to seeing myself as long-haired and blonde (though I was shorter-haired and grey for a while) that it’s strange being brunette again – not to mention also having shorter hair than I’ve ever had in my life. I’m thinking I’m going to let it grow out again, though the low-maintenance of a pixie is particularly nice.

Or maybe I’ll dye it some unnatural shade of pink or blue for the fun of it while it’s still so short and easy to manage – because clearly what my chemically-treated hair needs is more chemical treatment!

Jacket: Thrifted

Sweater: Abercrombie

Shirt: Banana Republic

Leggings: Thrifted (from a second-hand riding apparel store, of all places)

Boots: LL Bean

January 17, 2018 – Conclusions (OOTD #204)

Published on January 20, 2018January 20, 2018 by lensembledujour2 Comments

I think this jacket is it – the last new article of clothing I bought in London that I hadn’t yet worn.

As of January 17, 2018, I have worn every single thing I bought over my summer 2017 London trip – I guess, except for a vintage riding hat I bought in Shoreditch, but I don’t think that counts.

I would say this is a bittersweet, sentimental moment, but it’s really not – I mostly just find it weird that I bought this jacket in the summer and didn’t find a way to wear it until six months later. It’s not like it’s a winter coat that just wasn’t seasonal to wear until now; it’s literally just a light jacket I honestly could have worn a day after I bought it in July in a Zara on Oxford Street.

Why did I wait so long to wear it? I’m not entirely sure. It was probably one of my favorite purchases in London, so I guess I was hoping to save it for something special? A certain kind of spectacular outfit that would deserve to have my finest piece from a great trip as a part of it, you know?

But then there were no spectacular outfits that deserved to have my finest piece from a great trip as a part of it, at least, none that I could come up with. The proportions were always just a little off, or I didn’t feel like the outfit did the jacket justice. So I waited.

And then I got tired of waiting. I woke up on Wednesday morning, the second day of class for the second semester of my freshman year, and I realized it was dumb to keep waiting for some kind of magical moment to prompt me to wear this jacket I liked. So I finally wore it with a perfectly average (average for me, at least) outfit, and brought my London fashion story to a close.

I think there’s a moral in there, but I don’t feel like figuring it out/putting it into words. Instead, I’ll leave you with this fun fact: I’m actually wearing the Zara jacket here with the exact same shirt I as the one I was wearing when I bought it and fell in love with it, meaning I’d known the right piece to pair it with all along. Haha.

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: Zara

Shirt: Free People

Skirt: Abercrombie

December 13, 2017 – A Summer Dress in Winter (OOTD #181)

Published on December 20, 2017 by lensembledujour1 Comment

Christmas Outfits Challenge 2017: Day 11

It’s odd, you know, I feel like this dress has the perfect Christmas pattern – it’s literally a mix of red and green flora, with a touch of a classic paisley design. The dress itself, however, is much more of a warm-weather textile, meaning of course, that I was pretty cold wearing it out in the 15 degree Northern Indiana air.

There’s something about the snow, though, that makes things feel warmer. Is it the sun reflecting off the white snow that adds a touch of heat? Is it the way that I just tend to wear a warm coat more often when I go outside in the snow than when it’s just chilly out, and so I feel warmer even though it isn’t really and it’s all in my head? I’m not sure.

Yet there’s just something about a layer of literal frozen water sitting atop the grass that makes me feel warmer, and like I can wear weather-inappropriate clothing outside. Anyone else feel the same?

It also helps that when I wore this outfit, I only had to go outside like once all day, and that was for my 8 AM French final. It was kind of miserable going out at 7:30AM for a 15 minute walk to the classroom in the 15 degree cold, but after that, I just relaxed in my warm room and procrastinated from studying for my Theology final.

The climate control in my room is absolutely horrid, but I must say – it’s always warm. That is a terrible reality in the summer, when staying in the room is the equivalent of staying in the fires of hell, but for now, when it’s actually cold out, it’s nice to be able to come home to a cozy room.

The…benefits of living in a nearly 100 year old dorm with nothing but one shabby radiator for two rooms?

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life as an idiot college student. 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: Abercrombie

Sweater: The LOFT

December 4, 2017 – A Not Ugly Christmas Sweater (OOTD #174)

Published on December 8, 2017August 15, 2019 by lensembledujour2 Comments

When did the ugly Christmas sweater become a trend, anyway?

I feel like it’s been within my lifetime, but that’s admittedly been pretty short so far, so I’m not sure. I remember being embarrassed as a kid to have to wear oversized, holiday-themed sweaters – I thought they made me look like my grandmother (no offense to my grandmother – a truly fabulous, fashionable woman).

But sometime within the last few years it seems, weird, vintage-y sweaters seem to have come back into style. I myself can attest to this – I have about seven Goodwill Christmas sweaters proudly stored in my closet, all waiting until December when they can finally be worn after sitting in storage for the rest of the year.

Maybe that’s why I go out of my way to wear as many Christmas-themd outfits as I can in the weeks leading up to two the holiday – I’ve got all these amazing sweaters that I’ve collected over the years, but I have to keep them stored away in my closet for eleven out of the twelve months. It seems unfair.

This, however, is not one of Goodwill Christmas sweaters – it’s still a Christmas sweater, sure, but it was one that I bought for about $50 at Abercrombie rather than $5 at a secondhand store. Overpriced? Yeah, especially for the fact that it’s only in season for a small portion of the year.

All the more reason to make a point to wear it whenever I can during the holiday season, right? Got to make make the most of that $50 impulse buy.

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: Abercrombie

Skirt: Pitaya

December 1, 2017 – Slytherdor (OOTD #173)

Published on December 7, 2017 by lensembledujour2 Comments

Christmas Outfits Challenge 2017: Day 2.

Yet another reason to love Christmas: you can wear Slytherin and Gryffindor colors together without anyone judging you!

I’m not sure if I’ve yet talked about my love of Harry Potter on this blog, so, if you don’t mind, I’m now going to talk about my love of Harry Potter.

I first tried to read the Harry Potter novels when I was in second grade. My parents had gotten me a copy of theSorcerer’s Stone for my birthday, and that night, before my mother tucked me into bed, she began to read the opening pages to me.

I literally only lasted two chapters before I told her I was too scared to go on.

Here’s the thing – it wasn’t Voldemort that scared me, or the fact that Harry’s parents had been murdered, or even the concept of witches and wizards and monsters being real. What I was afraid of was the Dursleys, though Dudley specifically. I’m not really sure what it was about them; they were just so mean, but in a realistic way. I’d read books with heroes and villains before, so the concept of an evil wizard trying to kill Harry wasn’t scary, but the Dursleys, who were essentially just abusive parents, were too much for me.

By third grade, though, I was ready to try it again. This time, I tore through the entire series in about six months, aided partially by the way I was racing my friend to finish the series (spoiler alert: I won).

Naturally, like most Harry Potter fans, one of my favorite aspects of the series and the world it created was Hogwarts, the magic school that Harry attends. In fact, I’m pretty sure part of what drew me to Notre Dame was the fact that South Dining Hall looks like the Great Hall as it is depicted in the HP movies.

At Hogwarts, each student is sorted into a house depending on his or her personality traits (actually…that’s kind of debated among the HP fanbase. Are students sorted by who they are, who they should become, or what they want to be? A discussion for another day, perhaps). As a kid reading the books for the first time, I immediately identified with Ravenclaw, the house for the intelligent, creative, and wise. It made sense at the time – I was a giant nerd, thought way too much of how smart I thought I was, and spent most of my leisure time reading.

At some point in high school, though, and I don’t even know when or why, I realized that perhaps Slytherin, the house of cunning and ambition, was the better choice for me. This realization was further supported by how, upon taking the Pottermore Sorting Hat test, I was sorted into Slytherin. Since then, I’ve taken the test a few more times, and I usually get either Slytherin or Ravenclaw, though Slytherin is the more common result.

Thus, the scarf I’m wearing here is for Slytherin, the house I would choose if I were actually able to go to Hogwarts. I still think I might do well in Ravenclaw, and I think that, if I were truly to sit under the Sorting Hat, it might ignore my wishes and stick me in Ravenclaw anyway, but I’m sure I belong in Slytherin.

(Also, for you other Potterheads out there: have you ever thought about how weird it is that Hogwarts sorts 11 year-olds into cliques that they’ve stuck in for the next seven years of their lives without giving them any choice in the matter? Seriously, if 11 year-old, Justin Bieber and Twilight obsessed me were given a personality test that determined my future through the rest of my adolescence, I don’t even want to know where I would’ve wound up. I’d probably just be expelled on the spot.)

Sweater: Abercrombie

Pants: Abercrombie (thrifted)

Scarf: Universal Studios Orlando

November 24, 2017 – A Shopping Day (OOTD #167)

Published on November 30, 2017 by lensembledujour5 Comments

Once upon a time, my dad and I used to go out on Black Friday at 2 or 3 am in the morning to get to big stores like Target or Best Buy and stand in hour-long lines in the late November cold.

It doesn’t sound like much fun, but believe me: it was!

I used to love Black Friday, and truth be told, I still kind of do. I don’t know, I just really like crowds, (strange thing to like, I know), so even though the nature of Black Friday has changed drastically in the last few years, I can still enjoy it.

I may not be lining up at 5pm on Thursday evening to get to the stores right when they open (because honestly, what’s the fun of going to Target at 5pm? I could do that literally any other day of the year), but I still do like to go out with my family at some point in the day. My mother hates crowds, so we tend to avoid places like the malls, but we get to get out of the house and spend time together, and that’s what matters.

This year’s Black Friday shopping had the super-glamorous goals of finding a pair of winter gloves and boots for me, and a comb for my dad! As you might have guessed, we didn’t expect to find such rare items anywhere in the stores we looked in, but to our surprise, we stumbled upon what we were looking for. A Christmas miracle.

Speaking of Christmas, the day after Thanksgiving is officially the day I begin listening my Christmas playlists on Apple Music. Back when I used to do early morning Black Friday shopping with my dad, this meant listening to my iPod while I stood in line to check out or in line to get into the store, but now that tradition is gone and I don’t really have one in its place. I still enjoy that first Christmas song I play at some point during the day on Black Friday, but it’s not quite as magical.

I like the traditional Christmas classics – you know, your Perry Como and Frank Sinatra – and I like the traditional carols and hymns, but in particular, I’m a fan of bitter pop punk Christmas rants. Give “Merry Christmas, Kiss My Ass” by All Time Low or “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out” by Fall Out Boy a listen – they’re a nice way to shake things up from your typical “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”

Anyway, it’s basically 1 AM here as I write this blog, and I’ve still got some homework I’d like to get done before I go to bed. What a concept.

October 13, 2017 – Friday the 13th (OOTD #135)

Published on October 19, 2017October 19, 2017 by lensembledujour3 Comments

**spOoKy vibes**

It’s not even a spooky outfit here – I left my glittery spider tights and my ghost socks at home – but it was a spooky day.

What made it spooky, you ask? I took a Greyhound from South Bend to Dayton, Ohio, and that was quite creepy. Not necessarily the worst experience of my life, but um…far from great.

I’m no stranger to public transport, but I’m no connoisseur either – I am, you’ll remember, from Kentucky, and we don’t exactly have any subways or trains here. Plenty of horses, but sadly, you can’t just hop onto one of those and ride off to the mall.

Thus, pretty much all of the transport you do in KY is by car, which, for me, a car-less individual who is a pretty lousy driver at any rate, is far from ideal. I do believe Lexington has a public bus system, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s actually used it.

The entirety of my experience riding public buses comes from the school bus, which I suffered on regularly from age 11 to age 17, a bus or two from North Jersey into NYC, and a tour bus in Beijing. A Greyhound was an entirely new experience for me – all I’d heard about them came from Billy Joel’s lyric “taking a Greyhound / on the Hudson River Line” in “New York State of Mind,” and the La La Land lyric “I left him at a Greyhound station / west of Santa Fe” from “Another Day of Sun.”

And how was the experience? Ehhhh…it might have been better if the driver weren’t the rudest person I’d met in my life (though I can’t blame him, a job as a Greyhound driver must suck), and if I’d not sat next to an extremely obese woman for the first leg of the journey (though I can’t blame her either, it’s not her fault I chose to sit next her), but all in all – it was alright. I napped. I watched Treehouse of Horror episodes. I looked at memes on Twitter. It was pretty dull and the only sketchy thing that happened was that one time that the bus driver threatened to kick this one guy off the bus for…reasons? I don’t really know actually; I was pretty engrossed in Treehouse of Horror VI.

Jacket sweater shrug thing: Forever21

Top: H&M

Bralette: Aerie

Jeans; Abercrombie

October 5, 2017 – The Most Expensive Item in My Wardrobe (OOTD #129)

Published on October 11, 2017 by lensembledujour15 Comments

I’m a little bitter here because in half of these shots, my hair is covering up the lovely bow detailing on my jacket. Ah well, if you’re really dying to see this jacket in more detail, check out this post from a few months ago when I wore it last.

This jacket has an interesting story to it – I bought it from a local thrift shop for about $30, which, compared to the rest of the prices at this particular store, is kind-of high. Still, I absolutely fell in love with it, and $30 is hardly extortionate, so I was willing to pay extra for it. I loved the way the large bow detail was incorporated into the collar in an intelligent way; it struck me as something that was created with artistry and not just salability in mind.

Anyway, I liked it so much that I decided to look up the brand online after I purchased it, figuring that, if this jacket was so unique, surely there would be other things for sale by Lela Rose that were of similar quality and design.

Welp…I was right. There were definitely plenty of things made by Lela Rose that were of great quality and intelligent design – and also very high price. Lela Rose, apparently, is a legit designer – legit enough that her pieces sell for over a thousand dollars each on her website. For just a simple polyester sweater, you’re going to pay $800.

I have no idea what the retail price of this particular jacket was, but I assume it was quite a bit more than $30. Apparently, the $30 they were asking for it was not at all an unreasonable price – it was an absolute steal.

Which makes me think – whomever sold this jacket to a thrift shop probably did not get much for it at all, not even close to what they must have paid for it. I would feel badly for them, but their mistake ended up benefiting me…so…thanks, I guess?