thrift – Page 27 – L'ensemble du jour

October 14, 2017 – Looking Like a USC Fan (OOTD #136)

Published on October 20, 2017October 20, 2017 by lensembledujour1 Comment

Obviously, I’m not.

Why do I make that sound like it’s obvious? Well, because Notre Dame is playing USC (as in Southern California, not South Carolina – as my father just recently informed me) tomorrow, and despite how little my pea brain knows about football, I do rather hope that ND succeeds.

You can bet that tomorrow I’ll be wearing blue and gold (and maybe some green?) rather than maroon and yellow.

In fact, I’m so passionate about Notre Dame’s success in this game that I’m going to be headed back to school on another Greyhound bus for another five hours of fun so that I can make it to the game. I’ll miss out on the tailgating and the pregame photos, but I don’t mind – I have yet to have a tailgating experience that’s I’d call “fun.” I guess I haven’t had enough alcohol yet.

I am definitely excited for the game though. I hope I make it on time – my bus gets into South Bend at 6:15, and the game starts at 7:30. It’ll be an interesting hour and fifteen minutes, trying to get from the South Bend airport to my dorm room to drop off my bags to the stadium to find my friends, but the alternative was to have arrived a day earlier, and I was not about to sleep in my crappy dorm room bunk bed for any extra days than I had to.

Sleeping in my bed has been the greatest part about being home. Eating a crap ton of junk food and my mother’s cooking and not exercising at all has been lovely too. Having my parents to drive me around places (since I’m not allowed to have a car on campus) was also great – it meant I could go to craft fairs like this one I’m so cheerily posing in front of in these photos.

I’m going to miss home. Thankfully, this time, it’s only four weeks of school before I get to be home again for Thanksgiving. I can already taste the turkey.

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: Forever21

Pants: the LOFT

October 11, 2017 – Candy Apple Red (OOTD #133)

Published on October 16, 2017October 16, 2017 by lensembledujour3 Comments

You know what I haven’t had yet this season? A good caramel apple.

Okay, so admittedly, that wasn’t the smoothest transition from a blog title to the actual blog that I’ve ever written, but I tried. I thought my outfit looked like it was candy apple red, and I thought about how I liked caramel apples, which are sort of like candy apples, so I thought I would smash them together.

Anyway, caramel apples! They’re wonderful and there are none to be had at the Notre Dame dining halls, neither at North or South. I thought maybe I’d be able to get one when I went to the apple orchard a few weeks back, but alas – no caramel apples. Not even a candy apple.

In my sorrow, I decided to create an outfit out of my desire for an apple smothered in caramel and chopped nuts. Or rather, I created an outfit Wednesday morning out of the fact that I was rushing off to Theology class and I had very little time to put anything together, and then I decided to title this blog out of my desire for an apple smothered in caramel and chopped nuts.

It’s okay though, because my dad and I are headed out tomorrow (at the time of my writing this, I’m on fall break, so I’m presently at home even though my OOTD photos are from while I was still at school) to a pumpkin patch where I know they sell good caramel apples. You readers won’t get to see that post for another week, likely, since these posts are on a delay, but no worries – you’ll see it eventually.

I’m so excited to get and carve pumpkins. Since I was a kid, my father and I have been carving pumpkins together, and each year, we try to do something more and more elaborate. Last year, I did a large pumpkin being eaten my smaller pumpkins, the year before, I did a pumpkin with an exposed brain, and the year before, I did a pumpkin with a split skull.

I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do with my pumpkin – guess that’s what I ought to do now.

Top: Vintage (thrifted)

Skirt: Forever21

Jacket: Vintage (thrifted)

October 2, 2017 – OCTOBER (OOTD #126)

Published on October 8, 2017 by lensembledujour7 Comments

OCTOBER. THAT IS ALL.

Can I just end the blog here? I’ll still show you all the photos at the bottom, but I think I just summarized all of my feelings about this month in those four words.

What can I say that hasn’t already been said? October is a great time. It’s the start of the Holy Trinity of holiday-centered months – October, with Halloween, November, with Thanksgiving, and December, with Christmas. You can’t help but feel festive for the entirety of these 90 or so days. From pre-Halloween to post-Christmas, everything just feels more exciting.

For me, October is a particularly lovely month because it means the end of September, which, as I mentioned in a previous blog, is my least favorite month. By October, I’m usually in an established pattern with my classes, and the uncertainty and nervousness that I associate with September has passed.

Plus, the weather in October is arguably the best we get all year in the…Midwest? I guess I’m in the Midwest now – I forget that I’m not in the South anymore sometimes. Anyway, the air gets cooler, the leaves are turning beautiful colors, the nights get longer…yada, yada, everything cliché about October that you’ve already heard and already know.

Since it’s October, I felt justified in breaking out the spooky all-black clothes. Not that I don’t wear all-black in other months and seasons – even mid-summer – but I definitely wear it more often in the cooler months.

The highlight of this day though – even more so than getting to wear all-black – was that my friend Wendy asked me to help her with a photography project she’d been assigned. She had some portraits to do, and since she’d been kind of enough to take some of my OOTD photos after our Astronomy class let out on Tuesday/Thursdays, she knew I was comfortable with having my picture taken.

I met her in the photography studio in the art building, and we got to work. Or rather, she got to work. I just sat there and did what I was told. And I’m glad I did, because look at these results! I know it’s my face, and so it’s weird for me to praise pictures of my own dumb face, but still – these pictures look pretty nice. If not because I’m in them, then at least because it was a really nice camera that could capture excellent details.

Anyway, I’m going to go back to brewing potions, sleeping in graveyards, and doing October stuff. 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!

Top: Unknown (thrifted)

Skirt: Zara

September 26, 2017 – Vaguely 60s (OOTD #121)

Published on October 2, 2017October 2, 2017 by lensembledujour6 Comments

I love vintage-inspired fashion.

Take a little glance through the “vintage” tag here on this blog and you’ll see – there’s no shortage of old clothes in my wardrobe. I love the exhilaration of a hunt for a good piece in the bargain bin of a second-hand shop; alternatively, I also love the feeling of walking into a trendy vintage shop full of high-end designer items. There are so many ways to enjoy vintage clothing; there’s no “one” way of doing vintage.

Unlike, say, trendy fashion, in which there is usually has a very clear and defined method of wearing the trend, vintage fashion throws the rules out the window. You can do whatever you want, as long as you make it work.

And how does one make it work? My preference is to pair them with contemporary pieces to create a remixed look that’s stylish without being too basic. Current trends tend to borrow from history, so, given the right vintage piece, it’s no trouble at all to make it look modern.

Take this outfit, for example. This dress comes from the greatest vintage fashion market I’ve ever seen – the Brick Lane Market in Shoreditch, London. I talked about it extensively on the blog from day that I visited there, and I have been talking about it extensively ever since. I’m pretty sure I’m going to still be talking about it when I’m on my deathbed.

Anyway, the dress is vintage, but the styling is not. My bag, thigh-high socks, sunglasses, and shoes are all contemporary, and thus, the outfit doesn’t come off as a 60s costume.

For extra flair, I went for the closest thing to a 60s-inspired Bridgette Bardot ponytail that I could get without a curling iron and without teasing my hair. In other words – it was a pretty sad excuse for a Bridgette Bardot ponytail, but it’s the best I could do. Do I get my participation medal now?

TL; DR: Vintage pieces are such a great way to stand out from the standard fashion trends, while still being stylish. I like them and you should too.

Dress: Vintage

September 21, 2017 – The Catharsis of Complaining (OOTD #117)

Published on September 27, 2017 by lensembledujour3 Comments

Check out those greasy bangs.

It happens. Sometimes you’re rushing out the door to make it to your 9:25 Theo class and all you have time to do is throw your hair into a messy post-run ponytail. Your dry shampoo is located a whole 20 ft away in the other room, and while you could take the extra minute to grab it and spray some on your greasy roots, you might then only make it to Theo by 9:24, and sometimes your professor decides to start class early. 9:23 is much safer.

Walking in at 9:24 is by no definition evil – in fact, you’re still definitely on time – but, in the case that your professor does start lecturing early, you’ll have to walk past him to get to your seat, and by then, everyone’s eyes are focused on the from of the room. Even if they don’t notice your greasy hair, they’ll notice the disheveled state of your ponytail, and perhaps even the fact that you haven’t quite stopped sweating from your run.

Without any better ideas, you put on a headband, in hopes that it will somehow conceal how dirty your hair is. Unfortunately, the headband is too thin to make much of a difference, and it’s not even very visible because it’s the same goldish-silver color as your hair.

It also doesn’t help that you’re wearing wedges that slow your walking speed by about 25%. They look really cute with the buttons of your sweater, sure, but they’re definitely not going to help you get to class any faster…which is a problem when you’re running late as is.

My point? I like complaining – it’s cathartic. Also, maintaining a daily fashion blog means I have to take pictures of myself even when I don’t look my best, such as when I have greasy bangs. Rather than try to pretend they’re not there, though, I like to point them out – especially when I have no better ideas for how to start a blog. Complaining’s a good way to get the ball rolling fast enough to blast through the writer’s block.

Oh, and I guess I could also say that recognizing one’s own flaws is particularly relevant in today’s society, where technology allows us to remove our flaws with photo editing programs and thus present to the world a more perfect image of ourselves than what exists. But I’m a college student, and I already have enough essays where I have to say clichés like “in today’s society,” so this point’s just going to be stuck here at the end as an afterthought, okay? Don’t want to sound too preachy.

Sweater: The LOFT

Shirt: Vintage (thrifted)

Jeans: Abercrombie

September 15, 2017 – I Think They Call This A Misnomer (OOTD #113)

Published on September 21, 2017 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Today, I am Speedy.

I’m actually not sure what Speedy refers to – was Speedy particularly fast at doing his job? Did he eat his lunch quickly? Was he a track star in high school? Only Speedy knows the answer to these questions, and sadly, the only thing I know about Speedy is that he dropped off this shirt at a Salvation Army in Kentucky for me to come along and buy sometime later.

I love work shirts with someone else’s name on them. In fact, this is my second outfit featuring the misnomer shirt trend – the first one, which I featured on this blog back in June, labeled me as Oscar, and came in the mail as a surprise gift from my uncle who also enjoys lying about his name on his shirts.

I don’t know, there’s just something stupidly funny about the whole thing. The shirt is ill-fitting, made of cheap fabric, features no interesting design elements, and can’t even get my name right. It’s so unfashionable – but that’s what makes it kinda cool.

In other news, check out that shot of the Golden Dome in the background! I still haven’t quite gotten over my enchantment with Notre Dame’s campus. Maybe, in a few months when it’s freezing and Notre Dame is covered in a layer of dirty, half-melted slush, I’ll come to loathe the sight of Golden Mary because it means I’m still a solid 5 minute walk away from my dorm, but for now, she’s still pretty cool.

The only campus landmark I’m really not a fan of is Touchdown Jesus. Sorry Jesus, but not even your giant face can distract from the fact that the design of Hesburgh library is literally nothing but a giant rectangle. Sure, it’s kinda neat to see this giant mural of Jesus and his disciples peaking up from above the trees, and it’s really great from orienting yourself when you’re on a more unfamiliar section of campus, but view Hesburgh from any angle other than the one featuring TD Jesus, and it’s just an ugly brown box.

How did I even get to ranting about Touchdown Jesus here? I guess I just have a lot more feelings about the library’s design than I thought I did. Maybe I’m just bitter because I spend so much time there, and I can attest to the fact that it is in desperate need of more windows.

Speedy agrees.

Shirt: Salvation Army (thrifted)

Jeans: Abercrombie

September 14, 2017 – Goth Kid at Catholic School (OOTD #112)

Published on September 20, 2017September 20, 2017 by lensembledujour5 Comments

I spent a decent portion of my adolescence complaining about public school, but I have to give it this – it made for a nice, diverse collection of people.

You want art kids? Public school has those. You want jocks? Public school has those. You want people who fit any racial, cultural, or stereotype imaginable? Public school has you covered.

And the nice thing about my high school was (wow, never thought I’d use those words together…), you never had to stick to any particular group – people were pretty free to float around the different social categories at will. And there was really no such thing as rivalries between the groups – no Jets vs Sharks stories here. Or, I don’t know, maybe we did have gang fights with choreographed dance sequences, and I just never realized. It’s entirely possible that I just never learned the social structure of my high school in the four years I was there – just like I never learned anything about physics or how to pay taxes.

But here I am now at private Catholic school, and gone are the diverse social groups. I mean, I’ve only been here for a month, and maybe I just haven’t gotten a feel for them, but it’s definitely less likely that I’ll encounter anyone in a Black Veil Brides t-shirt or with rainbow hair here than I was in high school. And I miss that.

The typical Notre Dame kid is probably athletic, white, well-dressed (but not creatively dressed…I went to a party once and all I saw were Kylie Jenner wannabes), the son or daughter of an alumni, and from one of the suburbs of Chicago. If it’s a dude, he’s probably named Jack. If it’s a girl, she’s probably a Katie.

(Also, if I hear one more Midwestern kid with that nasally Chicago accent talk about which suburb they’re from, I’m gonna lose it. Why isn’t anyone from like, the actual city of Chicago? Do people even live in Chicago?)

Anyway, fed up with the perceived normalcy of my peers, I just had to go for an outfit that had a darker edge. You know, the commercial, non-offensive version of “darker edge” – basically, nu goth.

Essentially, I dressed in all black and put my hair in Wednesday Adams braids. Simple, but effective – I was basically edgiest kid on campus. Which, if you ask me, if pretty sad, considering a blonde girl in braids and a black hat is hardly edgy or goth. The architecture at Notre Dame is more goth than 99% of the student body, meaning I’m pretty sure the architecture would have the better taste in music than the student body – goth kids have great taste in music.

Top: Unknown (thrifted)

Pants: Altar’d State

Jacket: Forever21

Hat: Target

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September 11, 2017 – Petal to the Metal (OOTD #109)

Published on September 17, 2017 by lensembledujour8 Comments

(Is…is that pun an acceptable title? I debated about it for a while and I ultimately went for it because I couldn’t think of anything else…but I’m still not sure. After you’re done reading this blog, you’ll have to leave me a comment below to say if you got it or not.)

I think I’ve found my new favorite photo location on campus.

In these shots, I’m right outside South Dining Hall, which is perhaps the only not golden-beige brick building on campus – instead, it’s made of exotic reddish-brown brick. As I’m sure you know, red bricks are extremely rare – I don’t know if I’m ever even seen a red brick before in my life. So obviously, SDH is the greatest photo location in the world, case-closed.

Okay, so the brick is hardly worth getting excited about (well, maybe it is, as it’s the only red brick building I’ve seen here – though I never thought I’d say typical red brick was exciting…), what’s really nice here is the landscaping.

Check out those beautiful red flowers. Gaze in awe of their non-golden-beige-brick-ness.

For real though, what Notre Dame lacks in their buildings’ exterior color, they make up for in some really nice flowers and plants. If you ask me, that doesn’t entirely make up for how everything here is basically the same color…but it helps.

Unfortunately, flowers don’t last forever, and they – and the bursts of color they provide – will be gone in a few months. Hopefully, we’ll get some nice autumn leaves though, and from there, we’ll get some more color. Maybe?

In the meantime, expect more photos of me next to flowers.

Jacket: Evan Picone (thrifted)

Skirt: J. Crew (thrifted)

Shirt: Banana Republic

August 31, 2017 – It’s Casual (OOTD #100)

Published on September 1, 2017September 1, 2017 by lensembledujour4 Comments

I can’t believe I’ve never used that as a blog title before.

For real – blog titles are hard, and I’m not very good about being creative with them. Thus, my titles are usually some sort of dumb reference to pop culture that’ll probably be irrelevant within a few months, but mean that I don’t have to come up with anything intelligent on my own.

I spend most of my waking existence as a college student trying to fake being intelligent in class, so I figure this blog is a place where I can be myself, yeah? And “myself” really just means being lazy and un-creative most of the time, lol.

Case in point – Thursday’s outfit. It was pretty much as simple as it gets – a white t-shirt and jeans. Granted, I like to think there was a little creativity in there, as layering the green barrette underneath and matching the suede choker to the suede shoes took some thought, but I’d be lying if I said I thought it was a masterpiece.

It’s not, and that’s okay! Not every outfit is a winner, and I’m happy so long as none of them are absolute losers. I’ve even already had some girls from my dorm start telling me that I “look nice everyday,” which is usually my goal when I move to a new place and have to establish myself as a fashion-conscious person. Gaining a reputation for being stylish is all about wearing consistently thoughtful outfits, while every once in a while throwing in a truly artistic one to remind people that you take fashion seriously, and every once in a while, having a dud because nobody’s perfect.

That’s all for today! 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!

Top: Target

Bralette: Aerie

Choker: Madewell

Jeans: J. Crew (thrifted)

August 24, 2017 – In Which Meilin Looks Like a Southerner For Once (OOTD #94)

Published on August 26, 2017 by lensembledujour2 Comments

How Southern am I?

Well, for starters, this dress is Lilly Pulitzer.

It’s funny – for the longest time, I’ve detested the title of “Southerner.” I hate sweet tea, country music, and I don’t have the accent (actually, ask some of my friends, and they think I sound vaguely British – but I don’t).

For context, my father is from Philadelphia and my mother is from Chicago, so neither of them are really “Southerners,” and they made no attempt to raise me as one. Even in my elementary school (which I visited recently – check out the blog I wrote about it) , most people were not really Southern into culture, despite the fact that we were in a rural part of Kentucky. I might have had one friend growing up who had the stereotypical accent.

But when I moved to Lexington in seventh grade, everything changed – suddenly, everyone had that “Southern belle” quality about them. All the girls wore Vineyard Vines and carried Lilly Pulitzer planners and got excited about going to University of Kentucky football games in the fall.

Now, I have an appreciation for Southern culture, don’t get me wrong – I love Lilly Pulitzer (in moderation), I think fried chicken is delicious, and I love how the people all smile at you when you pass them on the street. But that was never me, and I think that was mostly because it was never my parents either. They were city people, and even though I’ve never lived in a real city, I think I am too – or at the very least, will be someday.

So it was weird when I came here to Notre Dame and there were actual city people here, actual people who could claim to be from cool places like New York and Chicago and LA. Southerners are actually a minority here – maybe because the snow that South Bend gets scares them off – and I find that I’m actually missing them quite a bit. It’s odd because for so long, I couldn’t wait to get out of the South (for the record, Kentucky’s not even that Southern – it’s not like the Deep South), and now, I want to go back. I still don’t call it “home” – the closest thing to that would be New York, and I’ve never lived there – but I felt myself craving a little Southern charm here in South Bend.

So today, I wore my Lilly Pulitzer dress in honor of being a pseudo-Southerner and kind-of-sort-of-missing it. It’s bright and colorful and feminine, everything a typical Southern belle girl at my high school was. I don’t know if any of the South Bend people were impressed with it (one girl told me I looked like a stylish kindergarten teacher…I think that was a compliment?), but it reminded me of Kentucky and that’s all I needed.

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!

Dress: Lilly Pulitzer (thrifted)

Jacket: vintage