Reclaiming my inner Claudia

Have you ever seen the blog, What Claudia Wore? I love wandering over and being reminded of the sheer fabulousness of one of my favorite childhood literary characters.

Like so many children of the nineties I loved the Baby Sitters Club books. The entire bottom shelf of my bookcase was devoted to my extensive collection. I suppose I must have enjoyed the actual stories to some extent, but mostly I was in it to see what Claudia wore. I loved every bit of her brave and crazy wardrobe that felt every bit as zany and wonderful as she was. She may not have been the most conventional style role model, but as far as I was concerned her crazy uniqueness was the height of fashion. A fact I am reminded of whenever I look at pictures of little me complete with silver ribbon woven through my lumpy braids, electric blue bicycle shorts, puffy paint tie die sweatshirts, purple velvet overalls and other outfits that boldly and cheerfully proclaimed my individuality and loose adherence to traditional conceptions of matching and taste. I looked like an insane clown, but I was such a happy insane clown.

Somewhere along the line fashion stopped being a fun expression and started becoming a means of signaling to the herd that I was one of them. I know that I didn't covet abercrombie and fitch shirts ion high school because I had an inherent love for cheap screen printed slightly risque slogans on tight t-shirts, but I did have a desire to be considered normal. I had aspirations of being cool, but would have happily settled for normal.

I've been clumsily trying to telegraph how normal I am/want to be through my sartorial decisions ever since. And now I'm looking to enter a profession where I'm not just condemned to a life of suits, but even the suits need to be the perfectly conservative and conforming.

It's a truth that how do dress affects how people see you and thus how they treat you. It's kind of a sucky truth, but true none the less. It's true to the extremes where wearing a barely there halter top and a pair of patent thigh high boots is going to lead to certain assumptions, but its also just as true when it comes to the standard lady law student uniform of dark denim skinny jeans, cute top and a cardigan. I wear that, and it sends a very clear message that I belong here. It's comforting. It's easy. It communicates for me.

But it's not fun. And lately, I'm kind of wondering, who cares what people think? The people I actually interact with, who will actually remember me enough for their opinion of me to really matter are going to be going off  more than just what overpriced fabric I threw on each morning. And everyone else, the people I just make glancing contact with, why do I care what they think? What possible effect on anything that matters is any opinion of there's about me going to have. Assuming they even notice enough to have one.

Really, I'm the person I have to spend the most time with. I'm the person who sees me in the mirror, the person who judges me the most. I'm not saying I should ignore the reality of clothing as a message sender, but I should start caring what message I send to me. Wearing a disguise because it fits in with others may tell others that I belong, but it tells me that who I am shouldn't be shown.

I doubt I'll ever be as free and naive as I once was. I do care what people think, I am aware of what's normal, and that isn't a bad thing. But I also hope I can find a way to break through the box of the safe and generic and let a little me flow through.

Today I wore a bright mustard yellow shirt with a ruffle that I affectionately refer to as my big bird shirt, a full spring green skirt, big spiral earrings and fuschia flats with a burst of petals at the toe. I looked like an insane clown, but every time I looked down, after stifling my instinctive discomfort of being different, I felt as happy as a nine year old.

(I'm not posting pictures, not for vanity reasons, but because my attempts at camera timer failed miserably and Zach looks too tired to play a game of pose and shutter.)