Claudia Kishi, we salute you.

Blame Pretty Legit for sparking today's obsession: revisiting the outfits of Claudia Kishi. Oh, you don't know Claudia? She was the super-stylish, educationally challenged, Japanese-American member of The Babysitters Club, which I read devotedly (along with the antics of size six twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield from Sweet Valley High) throughout middle school.

Claudia may be one of my first fashion heroes; I can still vividly remember many of her stylishly wacky and thoroughly 80s outfit choices (I always applauded her originality and penchant for side ponytails, but never mustered the nerve to rock such looks in suburban Delaware). Still, I've got to admit that I've really been enjoying this trip down memory lane. {Maybe a little *too* much. I'm forcing myself to resist the temptation to dig out my old BSC collection from the depths of my parents' basement.}


Of course, it should probably be pointed out that Pretty Legit, who is still in college, and I, who is definitely waaay out of college, idolized two different Claudias. Sure, the descriptions inside the books are the same, but it's the covers that really cement your mental images and I barely recognized the Claudia illustrations of later years. I had a hard time digging up pictures from the earliest editions of BSC, but managed to find enough for this little recap.



I also grabbed some choice outfit descriptions straight from the books from the Claudia section of a BSC blog. Let's see what Claudia's been wearing, and let's remember, this was the 80s and early 90s. There are, not surprisingly, a lot of oversized hair barrettes going on.

*"I thought I'd start with my lucky earrings--the ones that look like Princess Di's. They're huge (pretend) emeralds, surrounded by thousands of tiny (phony) diamonds. Then I thought I'd work downward from there, wearing my new green-and-blue-tie-dyed T-shirt dress (the casualness of the dress would be an interesting contrast to those fancy earrings) over green leggings."

*"She decides to dress crazy and thematically, like Ms. Frizzle (from the Magic School Bus books). Her outfit? 'I decided my theme for the day would be The Sea. I put on a blue skirt with brightly colored tropical fish printed all over it. Then I put on a green blouse. I figured that could represent seaweed or something. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, over to one side, and I pinned it with a sand-dollar barrette I made last summer.' And she wears jellies with sea-type stickers all over them."

*"Staring back at me was a medium-height Japanese-American girl with almond-shaped eyes and long, black hair held back by a pink, star-shaped barrette. She wore a silky pink tank top with a man's white shirt tied casually over it, white jeans, and flip-flops decorated with more pink stars."



*"That afternoon, for instance, I was wearing a man's paisley vest I'd found at a yard sale, over a striped button-down shirt with tuxedo-stripe black Spandex stirrup pants, held up with pink-flecked black suspenders. My hair was pulled straight back with a paisley comb, and I was wearing electric-pink ankle boots. The boots really set off the formality of the rest of the outfit, sort of like the punchline of a joke."

*“It was a big, loose white shirt with black splotches all over it, and white pants that came to just below my knees. My shoes (and I might point out that I’d had a fight with Mom over permission to buy them) were dainty gold sandals that laced partway up my legs. Then I put on my pink flaming earrings and a pink bracelet that said CLAUDIA in heart shaped beads. Finally I braided my hair into four long braids, tied a ribbon around the top of each, and fastened the ends with butterfly clips.”



Not enough? There's an entire blog devoted to recapping every one of Claudia's ensembles, book by book.

I stopped reading the series sometime around book #40 or so, so I'm not quite sure whatever became of Claud and her impressive wardrobe. But I bet if Claudia Kishi were all grown up, she'd totally be rocking some Viktor & Rolf, and some Margiela and Yohji Yamamoto too.