Shay Her Own Way

THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB BREAKOUT STAR AND EMERGING STYLE ICON IS HIGH-KEY RELATABLE. (HER STUDY TIPS? ON POINT.)

- AMANDA MONTELL

Picture this: a cozy cottage-style house on the outskirts of Los Angeles, shared with your sister/best friend, a career as an actress-writer-director and a closet full of all the colorful, patterned dresses you could ever want. That’s the ultimate dream of 16-year-old Shay Rudolph, aka Stacey, the stylish new girl on Netflix’s The Baby-Sitters Club (coming back for a second season later this fall). Fresh off filming season two and gearing up for her junior year of high school, the effervescent performer and blossoming style icon is more determined than ever to make that fantasy a reality.

It’s a sunny summer day in Southern California when a fresh-faced Shay, wearing a cozy oversized sweater and a wide smile, chats with us to dish on all things back-to-school—from first-day outfit ideas to college plans to juggling life as a full-time student, actress and fashion It girl. “I’m starting to think about college this year, which is crazy,” she exclaims. “So I really have to focus.”

A *lot* has changed since we first met Shay a year ago. Like everyone else, Shay was sheltering at home. But unlike just about everyone else, Shay was about to be part of one of last summer’s biggest streaming hits.

“I was definitely surprised,” Shay says of The Baby-Sitters Club’s instant icon status. Pretty much overnight, Shay and her four co-stars’ Instas blew up. Tens of thousands of admirers were suddenly flooding her posts, begging her to do Lives and tagging her in fan art.