My morning has been unusually productive, but in between scheduling meetings and making photocopies, I have found ample time to explore What Claudia Wore. Who is Claudia, you ask, and why do we care what she wore? Well, my friend, you have obviously never been a 6 year old girl child. The "Claudia" is one Ms. Claudia Kishi, vice-president of the infamous Baby-Sitter's Club and fashion icon for those of us learning to read in the late 80s/early 90s.
Fact: I really wanted to be Claudia. She was so hip! She was so cool! She was Japanese! An artist! SHE WAS THIRTEEN! I aspired to be all of these things when I was six (yes, including Japanese) and thus, I tried my darndest to also dress like her.
Oh, emma.
To give you a sense, today's five things are five articles of clothing I not only owned but WORE. Not only wore, but thought I looked GREAT in. To my knowledge, none of these specific articles were ever photographed, which is a win for me since not only do I shudder to recall them but I was pretty round little kid back in the day who was also awkwardly taller than all her classmates. Also, all of them were bought and worn with the idea they made me look more like Claudia.
Ah youth.
1. Electric Blue Spandex Stirrup Pants ...yeah, do I really need to say anything else? Except that I bet American Apparel is selling them right now, which means time has taught us nothing.
2. Scottie Dog Shirt In retrospect, this probably leaned more towards "adorable nineties child" wear and less "80's trainwreck," but I recall it specifically because to me, in the first grade, it was something Claudia would have worn. The sleeves were long and black with, I think, some kind of herringbone pattern on the cuffs while the torso was half red and half yellow (front and back, kind of like a jester's coat). On the front were..three? appliqued Scottie dogs with bow ties in a plaid that was either red or yellow depending on which half of the shirt they were on (yellow on red/red on yellow). I really loved this shirt.
3. Purple Corduroy Overalls These were particularly exciting because my Claudia doll had them, too! Except hers were shorts and mine were pants, which meant I couldn't wear hot pink tights underneath in a way anyone would see. Oh well.
4. Puffy Shirt I do not watch Seinfeld, but I am aware there is an episode the revolves around this weird puffy-ruffled shirt. Guess who owned one of those? THIS girl! Oh yeah, was a big fan of that thing. It was white and kind of silky, and I may have owned a second in denim (the denim one? Okay, I admit, there may be a school photo...).
5. Harlequin Mask Pins I found these to be really exciting, and never felt more "hip" and "with it" than when I was wearing them on either side of my purple corduroy overalls.
I am...yeah, I got no words on this one. So I will leave you with a posting from What Claudia Wore. This was the inspiration for all the horror just described. This was the goal of six year old emma's style aspirations:
"For instance, at that Labor Day meeting she was wearing a bracelet of dyed, braided shoelaces, along with a blousy ruffled shirt that looked as if it once belonged to Captain Hook; mismatched high-top Converse sneakers; and baggy, pinstriped men's suit pants, gathered at the waist with a bungee cord. On me, something like that would look like a Halloween costume. On Claudia it looked way cool."
...See?
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I had the denim shirt. The ruffles around the neck area had a pink floral pattern on the underside of the denim. My mother made me wear it to my Aunt Lissa's wedding, and wouldn't let me tuck the ruffles. There are MANY pictures.
ReplyDeleteI was 9, which I feel is too old for that sort of folly, really.