Influence

I recently tried to think back to when my obsession with all things wardrobe began. For as far back as I can remember, clothing was always a very important factor in my life. But what factors really encouraged this sartorial love?

One of my biggest fashion influences comes from fiction. It was somewhere between third and fourth grade, when I had began to outgrow my American Girl books and gradually grow into my Baby-Sitters Club ones. Even though these books were part of a series, author Ann M. Martin always spent the first chapter of each book describing in detail each club member. And within these descriptions, were very meticulous portrayals of each character's wardrobe. Claudia and Stacey were considered the most fashionable of the girls, with Claudia being an artist and Stacey from New York City, which of course meant she was uber chic. Even though it was probably well into the mid-90s and Claudia and Stacey were wearing push down socks, fedoras, and giant flamingo earrings, there was something about these vivid descriptions that always made me fold down the corners of the pages they were on. They were ridiculous 80s outfits I would never wear even today (but can probably be found on some Coachella-loving hipster somewhere), but still some part of me obsessed over these pages. I reread these pages over and over again, engrossed over every little detail of every outfit. I think part of it it was that I felt Ann M. Martin and whatever ghostwriter found that what the girls wore was significant in the development of their characters. I feel the same about individual style now, and was probably looking for validation of my feelings back then too. I found this excerpt from a BSC Dawn book:

This is the outfit Claudia helped me to choose: a white tank top under lavender overalls, lavender push-down socks, lavender high-top sneakers, and a beaded Indian belt, which we looped droopily twice around my middle. In my hair we put lavender-and-white clips that looked like birds. I thought they were just any kind of bird, but Claudia swore up and down that they were birds of paradise. Who knows? (I think she was making that up.)

This is absolutely fabulous. And it was descriptions like these, that inspired my nine-year-old little self.

And this too:

Stacey had pulled back her permed blonde hair back with a leopard-print scarf tied under one ear. She was wearing one of her favorite pairs of earrings, gold leaf-shaped ones. She was also wearing a black wrap long-sleeve top, a short low-slung skirt with a big belt, black tights, and leopard print flats. She looked extremely cool. Which of course she is.

And...

Then Claudia handed me a full white skirt with the words Paris, Rome, and London, and sketchy pink and blue pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the Tower Bridge, and other stuff scrawled all over it. She matched it up with a pink shirt and a baggy pink sweater. I would never, ever have tried on that skirt, but with the shirt and sweater it looked really cool.
In the shoe department we found white slip-ons with pink and blue edging that matched the pink and blue in the skirt. I’d never have looked twice at those shoes, either, but with the rest of the outfit they were perfect.

More...

. . . for this early December meeting when most of us were in jeans and sweaters, Stacey (who is tall and on the thin side, with blonde hair and pale blue eyes) wore black leggings with cowboy boots, an oversized turtleneck sweater, and this cool black suede vest with pearl buttons. Claudia (who is Japanese-American with creamy, perfect skin, brown eyes, and long, straight black hair) was wearing leggings, too - purple ones - with black Doc Martens*, red slouch socks, black bicycle shorts over the leggings, a big t-shirt with the words "This Might Be Art" scrawled on it in purple (I knew she'd made it herself), and an old black suit jacket of her father's, with the sleeves rolled up. Stacey had gone for your basic gold earrings. Claudia's earrings were purple feathers (she made those herself, too).

Rereading these excerpts now has inspired me all over again! Forget the Alexa Chungs and Nicole Richies of the world. Before either of them could even dress themselves was the Baby-Sitters Club. Definitely one of the top, if not the number one, style influences in my life.

I found a lot of these excerpts from this great and hilarious website, What Claudia Wore.