January – Page 6 – L'ensemble du jour

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

January 5, 2018 – Welcome To The Matrix (OOTD #194)

Published on January 8, 2018January 8, 2018 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Red pill or blue pill?

I actually didn’t much like the Matrix films; the first one was alright, had some good action scenes, but the ones afterwards were so bloated and wordy that I think I fell asleep halfway through the second one and I skipped the last one. To be honest, I can’t actually remember which pill was the one you’re supposed to take to go back to normal life and which one takes you to the Matrix – talk about a fake fan.

If nothing else, the Matrix series certainly had style though, in a leather duster coat and sunglasses kind of way. And I feel like this outfit is definitely something of a Matrix-y style – for good or for ill.

For good in the sense that it has that post-apocoyptic cyberpunk feel, which was honestly probably the best part of the Matrix films, and for ill in the sense that I feel like my haircut plus this jacket plus the shades gives off a 90s vibe.

Is it retro or just dated? Honestly, I’m not sure.

At any rate, it is all black, and I do love an all-black outfit. I think I’m trying to make up for having worn so many colorful outfits during Christmastime; I can only do so much color during the cold months at once, you know? I’ll bring out my bright colors again come spring.

Jacket: thrifted

Sweater: Francesca’s

January 4, 2018 – Do The Locomotion (OOTD #193)

Published on January 7, 2018 by lensembledujour2 Comments

Still haven’t learnt my lesson about playing near train tracks, I guess.

This lovely set was located somewhere not far from the Keeneland stables in Versailles, Kentucky. My friend, Amanda, had been there before, so she suggested we go as a cool spot for photos. She was right.

We were planning on going out at 9:00AM for the lighting but, being lousy teenagers whose only greater love than pictures of ourselves is sleeping in, we ended up going out more like 10:30. From there, it took us about another hour to actual find the place – as it turned out, Amanda had been before, but she didn’t really remember the location.

It was all alright though – country roads in Kentucky make for pretty drives, so neither of us were complaining. Amanda’s a fun driver as well, or as fun as she can be in her Prius. I’m glad I’m too short to see the speedometer on her car though. I’m pretty sure it often reaches numbers much higher than what the speed limit calls for.

Several wrong turns and a consultation with an actual physical map later (who knew? they still exist), and we finally found this spot of train tracks over the water that we had heard of.

It was a pretty easy climb to get up to the tracks, but once we were up there, it was significantly more nerve-racking. For one, the wooden ties were each like, six inches apart, which wouldn’t be a big deal if the tracks were just on the ground except, you know, they weren’t. They were ten feet off the ground, and at the bottom of the drop was a shallow creek. A wrong step would mean a potentially broken ankle.

There was also the what if a train comes and we actually have to jump into the water bit, which could also result in some broken bones, depending on how deep the creek actually was. I guess, also there was the what if the train comes and we actually get hit by it or something bit, which would have been a lot more than broken bones.

Basically, the outdoors are dangerous and I should probably just stay inside and never go out again.

Thankfully no one died and no one broke their ankle and no train ever came, meaning the only outdoors-related trauma we encountered was the miserable cold. Seriously, it was like 15 degrees out and snowing. That’s nippy.

Forgetting the cold and the slightly dangerous location, this was probably one of my favorite LEDJ locations to shoot at. We got some really fun stuff at a distance on top of the train bridge, as well as under the bridge and by a nearby horse farm. Honestly, these photos are probably up there with Shoreditch and my Dad’s and my canoe trip as some of my all-time favorites.

Sweater: Forever21

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 3, 2018 – The Game Is Afoot (OOTD #192)

Published on January 5, 2018January 5, 2018 by lensembledujour6 Comments

This jacket is giving me Sherlock Holmes vibes, and to be honest, I really don’t mind.

Alternatively, I guess I also look a little like Nancy Drew – another comparison I don’t mind.

I had a detective novel phase as a younger kid brought on by my parents buying me a few Nancy Drew books for Christmas that year. I later graduated to Sherlock Holmes and then some Poe, and that’s about when the mystery phase stopped – simply ran out of time to read anymore. I personally count Harry Potter as something of a mystery series as well, just without the typical mystery story setting.

Anyway, I found this jacket at Goodwill for $5, which is more than a steal considering it’s Ralph Lauren. The fit is also amazing, which isn’t normally something I can say about my Goodwill finds. It’s typically a place more suited to finding oversized sweaters than well-fitting jackets, you know?

I paired it with a camel turtleneck (that I probably were too often…), a black skirt and black tights because apparently color is too much for me. Actually, looking back at the last week’s worth of outfits , it appears that I haven’t really worn much color at all in the last few days. I should probably do something about that tomorrow.