Tag: august

August 11, 2017 – Team Edward FTW (OOTD #85)

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Finally got my scraggly bleach-damaged ends snipped off.

I love getting my hair cut – I really ought to have it done more often. It’s amazing what a difference it can make, lightening up the weight of your hair and making it look more healthy, even when it’s in as sad of a state as mine.

Today’s outfit was rather simple: just a blazer, a shirt and a pair of leggings. It’s made more interesting though by the billowy sleeves of the shirt, which pop out from under the jacket and add some extra drama. It was a lazy day for me in terms of fashion, since I had to go to work early in the morning I opted for comfort over style, but I found that I was still able to add a little detail like that to keep from being too boring.

After work, I had to rush home to entertain some friends for the evening. I arrived at 5:00 to begin cooking and told them to arrive to arrive at 5:30, banking on the fact that they’d arrive around 5:45 since they’re teenagers and we’re a perpetually late bunch (I know I am).

And thankfully, they were! I mean, normally tardiness is a little annoying, but I knew I was going to be late with cooking dinner anyway, so it was better that they were late too. Yay for poor time management skills?

We’d selected three movies for the evening – School of Rock, Twilight, and The Brave Little Toaster – and we made it through all but the last. It was particularly amusing because Zach had never seen Twilight while Amanda apparently used to watch it once a week as a kid, making for an interesting experience of Zach looking confused and Amanda spouting out random trivia about each scene.

In the end though, we all agreed – Team Edward FTW. Not that it really matters anymore, since the Twilight phenomenon is thankfully a thing of the past, but Jacob’s character is just so much less developed, especially in the first move. Edward’s hardly Mr. Personality either, but he’s a superpowered vampire with My Chemical Romance levels of self-hatred, so that earns him some points. Plus, Robert Pattinson’s cuter.

Wait…why am I even going on about Twilight in 2017?

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: Forever21

Shirt: The LOFT

August 9, 2017 – “Don’t Play Near Train Tracks,” They Said (OOTD #84)

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I swear, I’m not dabbing in this photo – goodness knows I’m not cool enough for that – I’m just tripping on the train tracks.

My friend, Amanda and I went on a final trip to our favorite restaurant, The Local Taco, before we head off to college, and afterwards, we couldn’t think of anything to do. We drove around for a while listening to 2012 throwback songs (“Bottoms Up” by Trey Songz is still such a bop, by the way) before finally deciding to go for a walk at a nearby nature preserve.

Interestingly, the place where we went, McConnell Springs, was actually the location of both of our senior portrait sessions. It’s such a beautiful place –  not too many trees as to be distracting, and a paved path that was easy to walk –  meaning we both went into photography mode, scouting out the best locations and the best lighting for taking mainly mediocre and occasionally very nice pictures of each other.

I mentioned this in a previous post, but I rather like those friends who are cool with taking lots of photos together. Maybe it was the way I was raised – as a kid, I remember my dad often carrying a camera along whenever we went places – but I love being able to capture memories and events with the click of a button.

For a while there, I was pretty self-conscious of taking photos out in public; in fact, when Snapchat was first getting started, I was dismissive of the whole concept because it relied upon taking selfies while out and about. Taking a selfie in public? To 14 year-old me, there was no greater social faux pas, and no greater display of narcissism.

But I’m over that now – after all, I do have fashion blog, and where would I be if it weren’t for the public displays of narcissism that I put on every day taking my OOTD photos?

Anyway, along our little nature walk, we encountered some trees, a cave, and a graffiti-covered wall that made for good photo spots, but by far, our best photos were taken along a set of train tracks.

Being on what I assume was a still used train route, I was a little nervous taking photos there. Granted, there was plenty of room for us to get out of the way should a train come rolling by, but “don’t play near the train tracks” was, for whatever reason, a lesson that was as heavily stressed in my formative years as “don’t take candy from strangers” and “don’t walk out into traffic” – despite the fact that I lived nowhere near any trains.

I always get a little nervous near them, but I think the cool shots we got were worth my panicked glances every time I heard a sound in the distance. But hey, what’s life without the constant anxiety of death to keep you on your toes?

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!

Top: Free People

Shorts: Abercrombie

 

August 8, 2017 – How To Be a Blonde Asian (OOTD #83)

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Fun fact: I actually wrote my college admissions essay on being a blonde Asian.

Well, actually, it was more like I wrote about my experience being Asian while growing up in an almost all-white town and in an all-white family, and how that dysphoria manifested itself in wanting to change my appearance…but blonde Asian is a more succinct summary.

Anyway, if you couldn’t tell by my photos already, I recently bleached my roots! And if you couldn’t tell by the bright white of the top of my head, maybe you can tell by my broken, frazzled ends that I’m trying desperately to hide behind my back?

For real, I’ve been blonde(ish…it actually started out as more of an orange that I rocked for a month or two) for over a year now, and my hair’s definitely beginning to show it. Once upon a time, I had long, strong, healthy, and stereotypically black Asian hair, that practically needed to be washed twice a day to keep it from getting overly greasy.

Now, I have to be careful not to wash it much more than twice a week to keep it from getting overly dry.

Still, I don’t know if I’d trade my blonde hairs for the healthy brunette hairs of yesteryear. I rather like being blonde – I get a lot of attention for it, I’m sure largely in part to the whole “blonde” and “Asian” bit not typically going together.

One day I will have to dye my hair back to a normal color, chop off the broken ends, and return to life as a brunette, but as Aragorn from Return of the King said at the Black Gate, “it is not that day!”

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!

Top and skirt: Hollister

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August 3, 2017 – Schoolhouse Rock (OOTD #81)

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Guess what? There’s only one outfit in this blog post!

That doesn’t, however, mean that there are going to be any less photos for this one. Why?

Well, after a nice, long day hanging out with Jane involving walking around not one, but two separate malls and having Starbucks iced coffees at both of them like the basic (practically) white girl that I am, we decided to drop by my old elementary school, Liberty.

Some history about Liberty Elementary – it was constructed back in 1923 as a little one room schoolhouse, and was, if I’m not mistaken, the oldest school in the Oldham County school district until its 2015 closing. In fact, Jane’s grandmother even attended there, and of course, I did as well, from 2005-2010.

It was a nice little school, and I have a lot of fond memories from there, including winning a dance-off against a girl I didn’t like in first grade, accidentally breaking the finger of a boy I had a crush on while playing four square, and pretending to be a cat for like, a solid week in kindergarten.

So it was very nice when Jane agreed to hang out at the now abandoned Liberty Elementary that evening, even though she doesn’t really have the nostalgia for it that I do. It’s getting a little creepy and run down-looking, and the fact that it was getting dark by the time we got there didn’t help.

But you can’t really be afraid of the school that you went to as a kid, can you? Sure, the random hallways that still lit (emergency lights I guess?) and the giant X over the door of the playground entrance were kinda spooky, but I knew this place, and so the spookiness didn’t hit me that hard.

You could say that we weren’t exactly supposed to be there…especially given the signs that said “No trespassing” (in both English and Spanish, as Jane pointed out to me), but we caused no harm, and we didn’t even go in. There was no way to, actually, even if we’d really wanted to – the doors and windows were all locked.

How do I know that? I might’ve checked a few…or something. Not because I wanted to see inside, of course – just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any rain getting in, right?

Eventually, Jane got tired of me walking in circles and snapping photos of every other door and peering in every third window, so she went off to sit in the car. And since she was kind enough to entertain me for even that long, walking around some creepy old building that she probably didn’t care about, I soon followed.

I would definitely go back though! Maybe in daylight, for some clearer photos…and maybe with a crowbar…

I’m kidding, of course.

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!

 

August 2, 2017 – The Blog Post of 1000 Outfits (OOTD #80)

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I’m going to apologize for two things here: 1) not posting a blog for a few days, and 2) returning to posting blogs with an obscenely picture-heavy post with about four separate outfits in it.

The four separate outfit thing is less directly my fault though – my dad and I went canoeing for the first part of the day, so I had the outfit I wore for that, then the bathing suit I wore underneath for when we stopped and swam in the river, then the outfit I changed into afterwards since my first outfit was wet and dirty, then the dress I changed into when my friend, Jane, and I went out to dinner.

So you see, the costume changes were all necessary to the day and totally not all due to me simply being an excessive person who likes excuses to change her outfit. What, you think I’d start a fashion blog and actually enjoy putting together outfits?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXseat9FBee/

Pshaw.

Anyway, my dad and I started out day at about 5:00 AM with a two-hour drive out to Milltown, IN in order to catch an 8:45 bus down to the Blue River for canoeing. This – canoeing on the Blue River –  is a tradition we’ve had since I was a kid, maybe third grade or so. It used to be that we’d go along with some of my friends and their dads, in sort-of a daddy-daughter thing, but over the years, people moved away, and the tradition sort of died off.

In truth, we hadn’t even done it for years ourselves. But, with me going off to college in a few weeks, we thought it would be a nice time to bring it back.

And I’m glad we did. Canoeing is a low-key kind of fun; there’s not a ton of screaming and laughing, and conversation’s quite difficult since you’re sitting one in front of another, but it’s a nice way to simply enjoy each other’s company. The part of the Blue River that we canoed (didn’t know that was a word) down was really pretty, and there were a couple of banks where we stopped to walk around the woods and wade in the river as a break from sitting.

Also, the sunglasses are back! Thank goodness. I wasn’t about to wear eye makeup while canoeing and swimming, and I also wasn’t about to be doing pictures without either eye makeup or my sunglasses.

About three and a half hours later, around 12 noon, we reached the end of our trip. From there, I took on my second costume change of the day (the first being changing from my canoeing clothes into my bathing suit while still on the river), changing one dirty, wet top for a clean, dry one.

We then stopped in Louisville in the Bardstown Rd. area (very cute and hipster, by the way – almost like a little Shoreditch) for lunch, and, though I didn’t intend to take any more pictures, I couldn’t resist when I saw this big beautiful wall with a colorful mural on it. Then, I ate a popsicle, and I thought that would make for a good shot too…you see now why this is such a picture-heavy post?

Up next, I met up with my friend, Jane, who lives in Louisville. Jane and I became friends in 6th grade, and a year later, I moved away to Lexington. Regardless, we’ve stayed friends through texting and social media (and before texting and social media were huge, emailing and IMing), and we visit each other a few times a year.

That leads to my next costume change of the day – a beautiful pale pink maxi dress Jane bought in France and gave to me since it didn’t fit her anymore. We were going out to dinner that night, and I thought, you know, why not change out of my slightly ratty canoeing/Bardstown Rd clothes and into this new dress?

Thankfully, that fourth time was also the last time I needed to change clothes for the day…unless you count the pajamas I changed into at Jane’s house. I guess that would’ve made for five? Oops.

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!

Shirt 1: Forever21

Shorts: Forever21

Coat: North Face

Shirt 2: Hollister

Dress: Unknown (gifted)

August 1, 2017 – Socks Make Everything More Fun (OOTD #79)

Published on by lensembledujour6 Comments

I love the thigh-high sock trend.

It's been around since 2013, probably, and I've been into it since then. I remember sitting in my freshman Biology class, scrolling through Pinterest (what, you think I actually paid attention while Mrs. Smith played the same episodes of Bill Nye over and over?), and pinning dozens of outfit pictures to my fashion board of black thigh socks and how to wear them.

At the time, I didn't own any thigh-high socks, but I did have knee socks, which I would pull up over my knees and tape in place to create the look. I probably paired them with skater skirts and utility jacket – the height of 2013 fashion.

I hope I don't become one of those people who lives in the past and refuses to update her wardrobe 10 years down the line, but I'm still happy to wear the thigh socks trend even though it may be getting just the slightest bit dated. I feel like they make any outfit a little edgier, which is just what this plain floral shift dress needs.

In other news (I sure use that transition quite a lot, don't I?), my sunglasses have been missing for a few days now. You'll notice, I've worn my Fossil aviators and not my Ray Bans in the last few posts, and that's because I can't for the life of me find my dumb Ray Bans. I know they're in the house somewhere, but I've got no idea where.

I know they'll turn up, it's just a matter of when. Wish me luck hunting them down, yeah?

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!

Dress: Abercrombie

Socks: Hot Topic…maybe? Or perhaps Target? Lol I don't remember

Sunglasses: Not Ray Ban