Blogger Spotlight: Lily Chen From The Mad Ingenue

The next blogger that I am featuring in my Blogger Spotlight series is the lovely Lily Chen from The Mad Ingenue. She’s from Melbourne, Australia and started her brand new blog as a new years resolution. Lily has such a classic and feminine style, you will often find her in beautiful skirts and heels looking pretty along the gorgeous Australian coastline.

I got to interview her and see what inspires her and what pieces she can’t live without. You can see more photos of Lily and read the full interview in this post and you can check out her lovely blog by clicking here. I hope you all enjoy her personal style as much as I do!

What made you decide to start your fashion blog?

I have written several personal blogs over the course of my teenage years, the earliest ones dedicated to hashing out boy drama and the later ones (the most recent being my Tumblr) as an escape from the ennui of high school life and to further justify my Instagram addiction (with a dash of boy drama to taste).

The Mad Ingénue, however, is the aftermath of first year uni. My first day: a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ingénue full of hope that I’d join cool clubs and wander the streets of Melbourne on weekends. After my final exam: 8 pounds heavier and passed out from exhaustion amidst Psych notes. The point I’m trying to make from that rather graphic description is that somewhere during those 12 weeks, I sort of lost myself. So I reevaluated my life and wrote a list of things I loved (excluding friends and family). Top three: Fashion, writing and hot chips. Since overindulgence in the last could prove more hazardous to my health than beneficial, I decided to focus on the first two and thus, my fashion blog was born. Basically, I’m hoping this blog will push me to explore the beautiful city I live in and leave my room for reasons other than food and uni classes.

Tell us a bit more about your blog!

At the time of this interview, The Mad Ingénue is only 24 days old. As I’ve mentioned before in a post, starting a new blog is like getting to know a new friend. At the moment, I’m solely focused on fashion (trying to get in as many outfit posts as possible before heading off to uni and having to recruit another photographer!) but I do have a few posts planned in the food, beauty and lifestyle categories coming in the future! Oh, and travel. I’ve always been one to capture every silhouetted landscape and city skyline for my ever-growing “Travel” folder on my laptop. Now I have a place to share these snippets of the world through my eyes with, well, the world.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

In terms of fashion, my inspirations are multifaceted. Most recently, I’ve been turning to my most frequented fashion blogs (Gary Pepper Girl, Wish Wish Wish, Kayture) when in a rut. As a rule of thumb though, I turn to archives of the past when I’m lost for what to wear. Whether I am perusing the ’20s for the perfect cocktail dress or watching a Grace Kelly film to style a mid-length skirt, the past never fails to reignite my creative juices.

You have a great dress sense, how would you describe your personal style?

I think my blog name says it all: one minute I’ll be in a crisp, white-button up with a worldwide parent’s stamp of approval and the next, I’ll decide to throw on an incredibly jaded, the-world-is-inherently-evil, black-on-black ensemble (although my blog has yet to witness this side of me). I’m an ingénue at heart but even Ophelia had a dark side.

Do you have some favourite pieces in your closet?

I definitely nurse a soft spot for select pieces each season. For summer (which it is currently Down Under), I wear my black sandals religiously as they’re so comfortable for walking, go with literally every outfit and give me 3 cm of extra height, something I desperately need. Bag-wise, I’m in love with my ASOS clutch bag with gold hardware. Lastly, the highlight for me this season has to be turtleneck crop tops. There is something so classic yet scandalous about them at the same time.

What one thing can’t you be without?

I’m going to go ahead and assume this means excluding necessities for survival and loved ones. While I’d like to answer, I haven’t formed any unhealthy reliance’s on worldly creations, I can’t. So I’m just going to say it. I can’t be without the Internet. Now obviously, I will still be (be as in a living, breathing human being with bodily functions and capacity for thought), but would I really BE?