Tag: american eagle

March 3, 2018 – Farmers’ Market Fashion (OOTD #237)

Published on by lensembledujour5 Comments

Oops…so it’s been a while.

Ironically, in my last blog post (well…not the last — but the second-to-last) , I said something along the lines of, “don’t worry, I’ll have a nice long blog post for you tomorrow!” And then, not only did I not have a long blog post, but I didn’t post a blog at all!

For three days.

I don’t typically have long periods of time between blog posts, so I guess three days isn’t the worst. I’m usually pretty good at posting consistently here, so here’s to hoping that I’m able to keep up my schedule for the rest of the year?

The other day, about a week before I left for spring break (so, a week before this blog was posted) some people in my section from my dorm all went on an outing to the South Bend Farmers’ Market. I don’t believe I’ve ever gone to a farmers’ market, but after what I saw on Saturday, I would 100% go again.

Maybe I was just really excited to see things that were for sale for money other than Flex Points or Domer Dollars, but it seemed like a nice little market they had set up. If I were rich enough to buy my produce locally every week, I could definitely see myself going with some friends on a Saturday morning, picking up our groceries, and then stopping somewhere for brunch.

Like I said, if I were rich. As it is, I bought one pound of grapes and that about wiped out my bank account, so I’m going to have to stick to every once in a while for now.

It was fun to get off campus, though. I think I’d been stuck at Notre Dame for about eight straight weeks when I finally got out for this little field trip, and I was definitely craving it.

We came across this little tea and spices shop, and the colors were just so delightful I couldn’t help but ask to get some pictures with it. I love a good background, so even on days where I don’t usually do OOTDs, like Saturdays, I’ll make an exception if I see a colorful, well-lit environnement. Lord knows I don’t always get those at school.

Top: Zara

Jeans: Abercrombie

Scarf: American Eagle

February 21, 2018 – Yellow Bellied (OOTD #230)

Published on by lensembledujour2 Comments

Get it? Because my shirt is yellow and I’m about to go into a post about how midterms are scary?

Okay, so maybe “scared” isn’t really the word to describe my mental state right now, but certainly “anxious.”

Midterms are next week, and I am very much not in support of it. How on earth did I manage all oft his stress and work last semester? Did I even manage it at all, or did I just just self-combust way back in October and now I’m living in a state of imaginary limbo?

For real though, I always hear complaints about finals week, how that’s the true bane of a college student’s existence, but I’d contest that midterms are worse. You have all the stress of big, important tests with the added pressure of having to continue attending classes and going to meetings. Finals are truly that – final, so there’s something almost comforting about their decisive conclusiveness that midterms do not offer.

If I ever become the president of a school, I think I would treat midterms much like finals – cancel classes for that week and then even offer a reading day or two before they begin.

On a more positive note, I believe that part of my stress has to do with attending fun events and doing things with my friends more often than I did last semester. I’ve been to a few concerts, I ran (and was elected) as the Student Union Board representative for my dorm, and I’ve applied for some study abroad and internship opportunities for the summer. It’s been a good busy.

What’s been a bad busy is that I just realized I have an essay due in two days that I didn’t even realize was due, and I haven’t slept properly in…a while. What’s been a bad busy is that I’m writing this blog in the margins of my notes while listening to my professor lecture because I don’t know if I’ll have time to write at any other point today.

Two more weeks until spring break.

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: Thrifted

Dress: American Eagle

February 1, 2018 – For The Love of February (OOTD #216)

Published on by lensembledujour1 Comment

Did you know? February is actually my favorite month.

I know a lot of people aren’t a fan of it – it’s normally pretty grey, cold, and in some parts, snowy. There’s also not really much to get excited for, save for maybe Valentine’s Day, which, as holidays go, is about as applicable to me as as Hanukkah. It’s nice to observe from a cultural standpoint, but I don’t necessarily participate in the festivities, you know?

I think it has to do with the way that February has always been a month that’s heavy in snow days – not that I get any of those now now that I’m in the Chicago area, where several feet of snow is just an average Tuesday.  I wonder what it would take for Notre Dame to cancel classes for the weather? I feel like even in the event of a blizzard, they’d have us trudging through the ice and winds unless Mary herself descended from the heavens and told Father Jenkins to let us stay in.

I heard a horror story once of some time in the early 2000’s when, upon students’ return from winter break, the windchill was 40 below on campus. If that happens while I’m here, I think I may have to reconsider the winter’s status as my favorite season.

As for February though, I feel like no one else tends to really favor (or even like) it, so it’s in need of some love. Plus, by proclaiming it as my favorite month, I get to tell people about the time my junior year of high school that I only went to school for one week the entire month of February because Kentucky didn’t know how to handle #snowpocalypse2016.

Notre Dame’s excessive snowfall hasn’t yet hampered my love of the stuff, though. It helps that I swear it actually makes things feel warmer here. And when it’s 0 degrees Fahrenheit when you wake up for your 9:30AM, you take anything you can that’ll act as a buffer to the horrific winds.

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: vintage (thrifted)

jeans: American Eagle

top: Forever21

January 23, 2018 – Boyfriend Jeans Instead Of A Boyfriend (OOTD #208)

Published on by lensembledujourLeave a comment

If you had asked me this time last year if there’s anyway I could’ve seen myself with short brown hair, wearing a motorcycle jacket and boyfriend jeans, I’m not sure I would have believed you.

I guess a large part of my disbelief would have come from the hair – I think the Meilin of January 2017 would have liked to believe she could be long-haired and blonde forever.  It was such a major part of how I defined myself that I even wrote one of my college application essays on it.

I’m not actually blonde though – I’m a brunette – and eventually, the bleach got to be too much for my poor hair follicles. We’ll see how long until I start assaulting my scalp with chemicals again, but for now, the plan is to let my hair rest and grow out for a while.

Just as surprising to my 2017 self would have been the outfit though. Boyfriend jeans and  a motorcycle jacket? Not that I would have had anything against something edgier like that – my little high school emo self was definitely into anything that made me look like a scary teenager – but it was always still within a very feminine vein.

This outfit is much more tomboyish than I ever would have seen myself in before – and I think that’s actually a pretty great thing! I guess this is still more an observation than a passage of judgment, but regardless, I think trying out new styles and expanding on one’s fashion repertoire is always a healthy thing to do.

It’s definitely been for me getting to explore and investigate into this new boyish kind of style that I hadn’t really considered myself open to before. More options the better, right?

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: Hollister

Top: H&M

Jeans: American Eagle

January 13, 2018 – Winter Shorts Part 2 (OOTD #201)

Published on by lensembledujour6 Comments

If you’re looking for context behind the meaning of today’s blog title, look no further than this blog from earlier this week.

However, unlike the situation from earlier this week, when I found myself in 65 degree temperatures in mid-January, making shorts an unusually rational choice, this outfit features shorts for no particular reason other than I couldn’t find anything else I wanted to wear with this sweater. Also, it was like, 10 degrees and snowing, so you can rest assured that I’m still as irrational about my fashion choices as ever.

I did opt for the tights-under-shorts look in a (mostly vain) attempt to warm up my legs a little. It might have also had something to do with the fact that I wanted to get more wear out of the patterned black tights I had worn the day before… but like I said – it was vain.

(Peep my dog)

The decision to layer a collared shirt underneath the lace-up sweater actually came from an LL Bean catalogue I saw my dad flipping through. Normally, I’m more one to get my fashion inspiration from Pinterest and Tumblr rather than print sources, but that’s a preference rather than a rule. I’ll take new ideas from whatever I can get – I don’t believe there’s any intellectual elitism in inspiration, only in how you explain the inspiration.

Anyway, I saw some model in the catalogue wearing a collared shirt underneath a lace-up sweater, and I thought to myself that I had to give it a shot. And that’s how we got here with me in a collared shirt and lace-up sweater with tights and shorts on a snowy, 10 degree Kentucky day: one part practicality, one part vanity, and one part inspiration.

Oh, and one part just frantically trying to pick out an outfit in time to take the dog for a walk with my dad before he got irritated and missed much of the Eagles game. Does that fit into the practicality category?

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!

Sweater: American Eagle

Shirt: Hollister

Shorts: Hollister

January 12, 2018 – Snow Place Like Home (OOTD #200)

Published on by lensembledujour4 Comments

It finally happened! We got snow in Kentucky!

It didn’t really do much for me personally, as I headed back to school at Notre Dame a few days after it fell, and if there’s anything we in Northern Indiana are accustomed to, it’s snow. That and corn fields.

Kentuckians, on the other hand, are significantly less familiar with that white fluffy stuff that falls from the sky – in fact, I’m pretty sure we see more falling cotton from the cottonwood trees than snowflakes.

Winter has always been my favorite season in Kentucky because it’s fairly mild. Not so mild that it doesn’t feel like winter at all, like what you get in warm places like Florida or California, but not so bitter cold that you get tired of it quickly. Snow in Kentucky is a pleasant rarity – the sort of thing that you only get a few times a year so it never outstays its welcome.

Though, once, my sophomore of high school, it rather did outstay its welcome, and I wound up staying home from school for weeks. I think I only went to classes a few days out of the entire month of February (which is, interestingly, why February is now my favorite month). That’s fairly unusual though; Kentucky snow is usually either only a slight dusting, so little that it barely impacts anything, or when it is more substantial, it’s gone within a few days.

Life at Snotre Dame has yet to kill my love of snow and winter weather – though it was getting a touch old by the end of last semester. I have months to go before the start of spring, so I hope that my favoritism for the cold stays around. If it doesn’t, I don’t see how I’m going to manage to stay around campus.

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: American Eagle

Sweater: Altar’d State

Skirt: Forever21

Shoes: Target

January 10, 2018 – Shorts In The Winter (OOTD #198)

Published on by lensembledujour3 Comments

Well, I was praying for warmer days, and we sure got them.

Kentucky is the strangest state I’ve ever seen in terms of winter weather – you can have one day that’s 15 degrees and freezing, and the following day will be sunny with a high of 75. It’s not so much the 15 degree cold or 75 degree heat that bothers me – it’s that they follow one after the other. It just doesn’t feel natural, you know?

If you’d told me in mid-December when I was still at Notre Dame with its sub-zero temperatures and two feet of snow that I was going to be standing in front of my garage door in on January 10th in denim shorts, there’s no way I would have believed you.

Here I am though – shorts in January. The ice caps are melting and the polar bears are dying, but at least I got a little more sun than usual in a winter month.

I’m probably going to need to look back on these photos in a few weeks when I’m back in the frozen, sunless cornfields of Northern Indiana to motivate myself to make it through to the spring. Even my darkness-loving, cold-weather butt can get tired of the Midwest winter. For as weird as they are, the rare warm winter day we get in Kentucky can actually be a welcome reprieve from the cold.

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!

Sweater: H&M

Shorts: American Eagle

December 25, 2017 – No More Christmas Captions (OOTD #185)

Published on by lensembledujour5 Comments

Christmas Outfits Challenge 2017: Day 15

My goodness, do you even know how hard it was to keep making up Christmas/holiday-related titles for these blogs and my Instagram posts?

It was hard, okay? I mean, honestly, I wound up with one blog so-cleverly titled “Candy Cane Costume.” Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel. I’ve had some lame blog titles before, but that one was, to me, particularly lame. Like, I couldn’t have even titled it “Candy Cane Couture,” and made it sound a little classier?

Speaking of fashion, this, I admit, was not the outfit I actually wore today on Christmas day. Rather, I wore this when my friend Amanda and I went hiking the other day at a nearby woodsy area. In fact, I don’t even have curly grey hair any more…but more on that in tomorrow’s post. I may have a new haircut to show off.

The thing, though, is that I just don’t usually get dressed up on Christmas day; I’m lucky if I even make it out of my pajamas, especially if my family doesn’t go out. I mentioned this in yesterday’s blog, but my family doesn’t really do much exciting on Christmas – we don’t really have visitors, we don’t go to midnight mass, we don’t have a big fancy dinner.

We do usually have my grandmother over, but my mother was sick, so we had to postpone that meeting. It’s alright though – we had a fun Christmas anyway, and we’ll see my grandmother some other time.

Anyway, I’d like to wish anyone reading this a very merry Christmas (or, as it’s likely this won’t be published until late Christmas day or even the day after, a very merry December 26t)! And thanks to everyone who’s kept up with this blog since I started it a few months ago. It means a lot.

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!

Coat: Juicy Couture

Sweater: American Eagle

Shirt: Forever21

December 15, 2017 – A Long Day (OOTD #183)

Published on by lensembledujour1 Comment

Christmas Outfits Challenge 2017: Day 13

Fun fact: by the time these photos were taken at about 4 in the afternoon on December 15, I had been up for over 24 hours.

Well, nearly. See, it all started at 6 AM, December 14. Why was I up that early, you ask? I had my final final, that morning at 8 AM, and I wanted to get up early enough so that I could relax (sort of), have some coffee, and get ready before I made the ten minute walk to the building where my exam was held.

This was the final I was most worried about too – Theology. I had an A in the class, but I needed an 87 on the final to keep that grade, so I needed to make sure I actually did well. Thankfully, the exam went well (well enough… I forgot to memorize the quotes I was supposed to by Nestorius and Cyril, but…y’know – you can’t win them all), and by 10 AM, I was finished with my first semester of college.

Then, I managed to sneak in an hour-long nap in my room before my roommates came in and we had to clean up our dorm before we left.

After that…well, I didn’t do much. I really had no reason to be awake – I had a bit of remaining work to do, I guess, and some blogging to work on, but I probably should’ve napped so I could be up in time for my 4 AM bus to Midway Airport.

Should’ve. Instead, I stayed up all night with some of my friends were also waiting to catch buses to catch plains that Saturday after classes ended. It was kind-of a weird night…

Anyway, I wound up on that 4AM bus with only one hour of sleep under my belt. I managed to get another hour of sleep whilst on that 4AM bus, and by 6AM-ish, I was sitting at my gate at Midway Airport. My plane, though, didn’t leave until 9AM, so I just kind-of sat there bleary-eyed for three hours watching the people go by and thinking about how I wanted to nap but I didn’t really want to in the middle of an airport.

Time-skip ahead a few hours, and I was standing in front of my grandmother’s house in Louisville at 4PM taking my photos with only three hours of sleep over the course of 34 hours – one hour after my Theo final, one hour on the 4AM bus to Midway, and one hour on the plane from Chicago to Louisville.

It’s great being home though, and it’s great being done with my first semester of school. It was worth a very long day of being awake.

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!

Jacket: H&M

Shirt: Forever21

Turtleneck: The LOFT

Pants: American Eagle

Boots: LL Bean

December 11, 2017 – Brain Dead College Kid (OOTD #179)

Published on by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Christmas Outfits Challenge 2017: Day 8

Primal scream or person who’s just really happy it’s snowing out? 99% of people can’t tell!

This sweater is honestly one of my favorites – it’s oversized enough to be comfy, but still subtle-enough in its design that I can wear it unironically. It’s sort of like an attractive version of an ugly Christmas sweater.

In fact, I love it so much, it’s falling apart and I still haven’t gotten rid of it. I mean, I got it at a Goodwill, so I sort-of knew what I was getting into when I bought it, but now, I’m attached to it and I don’t want to let it go. I feel like I’m going to be wearing it still in 20 Christmases from now and all that will be left of it are a couple of knotted red strings.

In other news, I’m done with my first semester of college! I mean, the Meilin in these pictures wasn’t – she still had all of her finals to drag herself through – but the Meilin writing this blog several days later is!

First semester of college was honestly pretty fun – arguably much better than any one semester of high school. I’m glad it’s over though. I could use the month-long winter break.

Sorry, that’s but that’s basically all I’ve got to say about today. I’m brain dead. Send help.

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: Thrifted

Dress: American Eagle

SaveSave