Tag: feature

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Fickle Flatlays

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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!

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

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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

November 18, 2017 – Here Comes the Freezing Rain (OOTD #163)

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Why on earth can there not be a Notre Dame home game with decent weather?

Seriously – South Bend doesn’t necessarily have bad weather all the time. Maybe that’s the stereotype, and maybe I personally tend to complain about South Bend’s weather more than I ought, but in reality, it can be quite nice up here sometimes. In fact, I’m pretty sure the day just prior to November 18 was absolutely beautiful – high in the 50s or something like that – but of course, November 18 itself was horrid.

I don’t think you can fully understand how horrid it was. I mean, if you were just to walk outside for a few moments to go from one building to another or from your car to a building you would’ve been fine. It wasn’t even that cold – 40s maybe. But it was the wind, and the rain, and the 40 degree temperatures, and the fact that I forgot gloves, and the fact that I had to stand in one place not moving and totally exposed to the elements for hours that made the game day experience less than optimal.

Thankfully, I know there will be plenty more game day experiences in my future as a Notre Dame student, so I didn’t really feel badly about leaving after the halftime show, even though it was the last home game of the season. If I were a senior, maybe I would’ve stayed – no, I definitely would’ve stayed – but seeing as it was just a mediocre game, and it wasn’t even that big of a milestone experience for me, it was alright to leave.

I was a little sad that I didn’t get to wear a more exciting outfit for my final Notre Dame home game of this year – I mean, I’ve got a gorgeous blue and black plaid cape that I was really hoping I would get to wear before the season ended – but with the weather, it was just more practical to go for something that I wouldn’t freeze and die in.

I mean, I ended up kind of freezing and dying anyway, but it was all in good fun.

Afterwards, I went back to the dorm and changed into warm, dry pajamas and had a cup of cocoa, which was pretty much the best feeling ever.

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: The North Face

Blazer: Forever21

Sweater: Forever21

November 2, 2017 – Neverending Doorways (OOTD #151)

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When’s the last time I wrote a blog where I wasn’t stood next to some Notre Dame doorway?

For real, when was it? When I was back at home over fall break, maybe, and I went to a pumpkin patch?

As much as I’ve complained about Notre Dame’s architecture, saying that, with the exception of Bond Hall, it’s all the same golden beige color – I do find it rather pretty. In fact, that’s what I usually say when I inevitably get the awkward question “why did you come here?”

I know it’s a pretty shallow reason, but the honest answer that no one wants to hear – because Columbia wouldn’t have me – isn’t a socially acceptable response to give a stranger who doesn’t understand your sense of humor. And so, lacking any other ideas and being too lazy to come up with a better fib, I usually go with “well, I uh…toured it junior year, and I really liked campus and um…yeah.”

I like Notre Dame’s architecture so much, that I’m pretty sure pretty much half of my blogs at this point have me standing in front of doors. Kudos to whomever decided that if Notre Dame needed to be made of like, exclusively yellowish beige brick in order to represent the Golden Dome or whatever, it would at least have beautiful doorways.

Welp, I don’t have a clever conclusion to end this with today – though I don’t usually, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise – so I’m just going to cop out and say I have a lot of homework to do, and sitting around trying to write good conclusions is taking away from the time I would have to do my homework.

Bye!

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!

Jacket: Hollister

Shirt: PacSun

Necklace: J Crew

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Wonderful and Autumnal

Published on by lensembledujour7 Comments

Meta, right?

Lemme tell you a secret: I don’t actually take these pictures on Saturdays. They still usually come from the prior week, and I still usually write the actually post on Saturdays, but I don’t always have time to do the photo-taking and the coffee-drinking on Saturday. Thus, whenever I have a chance during the week (in today’s case, Friday) I go off to some pretty location, take some photos of my laptop and coffee, and then save them until Saturday.

In fact, the drink I’ve got here in this mug (which, by the way, I stole from the dining hall because I’m such an badass)  isn’t even coffee – it’s black tea.

There are so many lies being revealed in just these first few paragraphs; how can you even bear to continue reading? The next thing you know, I might be revealing I don’t even like fashion, summer is my favorite month, and Shoreditch was my least favorite part of London.

For real though, check out how cute and fall-like these photos are. I even risked sitting on a bench on God Quad surrounded by grass (which, by the way, the tradition is that if you touch the grass on God Quad you’ll fail Theology) to sit under this pretty tree and take pictures of the leaves.

I’m pretty I was judged by everyone who passed by me sitting on my bench taking photos of my planner and my computer, but I’m used to it now. I just don’t make eye contact with them, and I can pretend I don’t see them.

It also helps using an actual camera rather than a phone; that way, people might think I’m like, a legit photography student working on a project rather than a pretentious fashion blogger trying to take photos so I can look cute.

Maybe one of these days I’ll actually be as organized as my photos make me look, but as my home boy Aragorn once said, “it is not this day.”

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.

September 27, 2017 – Waiting On My Growth Spurt (OOTD #122)

Published on by lensembledujour10 Comments

It is no secret – I am very short.

I’m not going to bother telling you my actual height, but suffice to say – it’s not a very big number. I’m still waiting on my miracle growth spurt to push me up into the six foot range, but something tells me I shouldn’t hold my breath.

Actually, as a kid, I never thought I was going to be short my whole life. My parents were both pretty tall, so I figured I’d grow up and eventually be of equal height to them. The problem with that logic, though? They’re white, and I’m Asian: I was adopted. And unfortunately, when you’re adopted, you don’t get any share of your parents’ genes, including their genes for height.

So alas, whomever my Asian parents were, they did not offer me any genes for height. Even with heels, I’m just barely pushing “average petite” height – without heels, I’m on the more extreme end of the short spectrum.

RIP my burgeoning career as a runway model.

Where am I going with this? I’m really not sure. Maybe I was thinking I looked I little short (ba-dum tshhhhh…) in the photos for today’s post, likely due to the way the billowy blouse is too long next to my pants, making my legs look shorter.

Eh, whatever. The colors look lovely next to each other – bright and vibrant and classy  – so I can deal with some awkward proportions. Besides, that’s what sitting poses are for! No one can tell if you’re short or not.

In other news, fall break is in a little more than two weeks, and I’m slowly becoming excited to go home. Notre Dame is wonderful, especially now that the leaves are beginning to turn, but it’ll be nice to sleep in my own bed. I want to do nothing/be a social recluse at home rather than doing nothing/being a social recluse at school.

I didn’t think there was any conceivable way I could possibly miss Kentucky, but yet…here I am, missing Kentucky. I even, in a strange way, miss the Southern accent. It used to annoy me, but I’ve gone without hearing one for so long, that it’s like I’m developing an affinity for it.

Also, if I hear one more Midwesterner call soda “pop,” I’m going to lose it.

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: Altar’d State

Pants: The LOFT

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)

July 9, 2017 – Shoreditching (OOTD #63)

Published on by lensembledujour14 Comments

Oh dear, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

When I started blogging, I promised myself I wouldn’t let it go so many days between posts that I had to apologize to my readers for my tardiness, yet here I am.

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Am I "edgy" yet

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In my defense, London has had me distracted in the best way possible. There’s so much to see and do here, and every morning, I found myself eager to get up and start the day and every night, I found myself exhausted from the day’s adventures.

No need to worry though – my dear friend Amanda has been doing an excellent job documenting my outfits over these last several days, so the daily blog posts will continue from now on, just with a bit of a delay. Perhaps it’s better this way – gives me more time to distance myself from the day and give a true reflection, eh?

Anyway, flashback to Sunday, July 9 – probably my favorite day for the whole of my trip. We saw Shoreditch that day, which, for those of you who don’t know, is a charming little neighborhood in London that’s basically a hub for hipster culture. There are dozens of amazing little vintage shops run by guys with beards and girls in beanies, and I spent more money than I probably should’ve in the Brick Lane Market.


But what was best about Shoreditch was that it wasn’t crawling with tourists like some of the other places we’ve seen have been. I get it, London is a big exciting city, and people from all of over the world flock to it as a center for western history and culture (myself included), but the huge tour groups and confused-looking people standing right in the middle of the street trying to read a map get a little annoying.


Granted, I’ve been that confused-looking person standing in the middle of the road before, but that doesn’t make it much less annoying.


Second best to the lack of tourists was the amazing street art in Shoreditch. I mean, just look at some of the gorgeous photos I got that day, and it had nothing to do with having interesting angles or particularly good lighting. It was all in the backgrounds; they’ve got some stunning works all over the place there, and I wish I could’ve stayed around to get even more photos.


I also had fish and chips from Poppies’, which is, according to Trip Advisor, one of the best fish and chips places in London. To be honest, I don’t really like cod, but this was pretty good. I don’t know, I’m visiting London, I feel like I have to taste the signature dish whether I really want to or not.

Shoreditch: 10/10 would recommend if you’re planning a London trip.

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It was as good as it looks, don't worry

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Art's pretty cool

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Street art is cool! (London edition)

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That’s it for today! 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!

Turtleneck: Free People

Skirt: Abercrombie

April 28, 2017- Springtime in New York (OOTD #8)

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New York City: Day 2

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An oldie but a goodie #throwbackthursday

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Another long day has passed, and lemme tell you – I am exhausted.
Today’s agenda has included a visit to the The Today Show, The Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Little Italy, Chinatown, a Yankees game, and the Empire State Building.

If that sounds like a long day to you, believe me it was.

It was a ton of fun though!

The best parts were when me and a small group of friends were able to split off from the main group and explore the city in our own, such as our excursion to Little Italy.

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Street art is cool! (New York edition)

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I had the best food at a restaurant there called La Bella Vita. The pasta almost brought tears to my eyes, it was so delicious. Another bonus: our waiter had beautiful hair and an even more beautiful accent.
The outfit for today was built for both style and comfort. A high neck bralette layered under a lightweight canvas jacket meant I was prepared whether it was a sunny afternoon or a chilly morning (we experienced both). High waisted jeans meant I had more skin protected from the dirty New York surfaces, and my old black booties with a squat heel was comfortable to walk in.

That doesn’t mean my feet didn’t still feel like lead at the end of the day.

Jacket:

Bralette: Aerie

Jeans: Hollister

Also, be sure to check out my new Instagram! I just started it a day or two ago, and I’d really appreciate a follow! I follow back 😀