Style Icon: Claudia Kishi

Claudia Kishi has been a major inspiration for most of my life now. As Vice President of the Baby-Sitter's Club, Claudia had some heft in the direction of the series and justified Ann Martin's meticulous attention to fashion details in an otherwise plot-driven series. When I was a kid, reading literally every book in the series (+ spinoffs), Claudia set the example for me and accessories--wacky earrings especially--and made me feel not-so-bad about the fact that my mom dressed me in bartered clothes from a kids' store called Raspberries. Claudia broke all the rules, which seemed insane if you went to Daniels Middle School (where every cool kid wore matching sweaters from J. Crew and one specific pair of Gap shorts) but once I got to DMS, remembering Kishi style made it that much more appealing. This has stayed with me pretty much since then.

Luckily, there is already an entire blog devoted to Claudia/BSC style, with lots of passages from the books:

Claudia's style is unique. She doesn't often wear jeans, but she was wearing them today - only she'd cut patterns in the legs of the jeans (which were major faded) and was wearing leopard tights underneath so that they showed through. She was wearing her Doc Martens with yellow shoelaces, and she'd used matching shoelaces to pull her hair back into a thick, long braid. Her earrings were a pair she made herself, out of little yellow feathers and black beads. And she was wearing a black and yellow striped flannel shirt buttoned up to her throat, with another pair of shoelaces made into a sort of bow tie.

Unless I'm crazy, that is a totally awesome outfit for a thirteen-year-old girl to be wearing!