Make Your Mini Designer’s Dreams Come True with Fashion Playtes

Courtesy Fashion Playtes

Good news for your future fashion designer: Her sketches may just hit the runways (or school halls!) sooner than she thinks.

With the help of Fashion Playtes, an online site that allows kids to be the masterminds behind their custom clothes, little girls can take their lookbook ideas from paper to fabric in a flash.

After choosing a blank clothing canvas (anything from tops and bottoms to jackets and dresses!), she can add her own personal touch with splashes of color and fun detailing. She can even include her own custom-made label to the outfit before saving it to her collection.

And if your designing diva hits a dead end, the company’s line of basic starter pieces — including the Littlest Pet Shop — can help get her inspired.

Ready for her to rock the fashion world? Set her up at fashionplaytes.com.

– Anya Leon

Comments

Really cool.I’m sure little girls are going to love it. It will be lot of fun for the ones who have creative designing ideas. The picture looks so sweet and cute too.

- nasheeka on February 6th, 2012

My daughter has made clothes though them for her American girl doll. They are a good company, everything was nicely made.

- Maryanne on February 6th, 2012

Kind of boring design options. Wish they wouldn’t dumb it down so much.

- Anonymous on February 6th, 2012

This is awesome! I wish they had this when I was younger, I would have loved it, and most of the little girls probably will too. I once saw a similar idea where you drew sketches and sent them in, but it seemed harder for small kids to do, and it costed a fortune. A gift certificate seems like a great idea for a fun gift.

- Erika on February 6th, 2012

Wonderful that this is only directed at girls. Truly wonderful. I am so happy that if a little boy heard of this and felt he was interested in it, that he would feel there was maybe something wrong with him because the advert could not make it any clearer that this is for GIRLS. just for GIRLS.

oh and if either of my daughters ever declare themselves a ‘diva’ we will have to have a little chat straight away.

seriously, is this all we want for girls? i’m not saying that there is anything wrong with girls wanting to design clothes, but adverts like this make it seem like this is woman’s work, what a woman is supposed to do…. can we maybe open our minds to the possibility that there can be some overlap between what boys and girls are interested in? last summer my son was designing clothes for his teddy. what should i tell him?

- JM on February 6th, 2012

@JM, you’re 100% correct. This isn’t all we want for girls, and it should be equally accessible for boys. I’ll be contacting them. In reality, there are more (famous) male fashion designers, anyway….

- SMiaVS on February 6th, 2012

@JM,

I don’t see any reason your son can’t use the product as well, just don’t show him the advertising. I will say the advert does have an enormous amount of makeup on those little girls. Why???

- Catca on February 6th, 2012

Does anyone else find the makeup on these girls creepy? They look like they’re ready for toddlers and tiaras.

@JM
I have all girls, but my nephew is really into tie-dye and knitting. I’m sure he’d love to do Fashion Playtes (hate the kre8tive spelling) but until they realize boys like to design too… I guess we’ll go to Hobby Lobby and buy some blank tees and embellishments there.

- Julie on February 6th, 2012

Yeah, the amount of makeup was the first thing I noticed.
Reading this had me wondering how old designers such as Narciso Rodriguez and Jason Wu were when they decided they wanted to design clothes.

- Stella Bella on February 6th, 2012

How about we get kids OFF of the internet and outside?

- t. on February 6th, 2012

JM- I think it’s great that your son enjoys designing clothes and stuff, but who said boys couldn’t use the site? If your son wants to use the website, he can, regardless of the advertising. The use of all girls in the advertisements are probably just because it would appeal to a larger percentage of girls, and they want to attract the category of people who would use the products the most. I’m sure they didn’t mean that girls are the only ones who can use it.

I do agree with what you said about it being portrayed as “woman’s work” and believe that we should show girls that they can do *anything*, not just stuff that seems feminine . But so many toys for little girls involve dolls and princesses, so this is actually kind of a nice thing in my opinion.

- Erika on February 6th, 2012

The first thing I noticed was the make up. So inappropriate.

- TLH on February 6th, 2012

They’re wearing TOO much makeup!!

- Doreen on February 6th, 2012

Thank you, everyone, for the great feedback and comments about FashionPlaytes. The company was started by Sarah McIlroy as a way to expand her love of clothing design and creativity shared with her mother and daughter to other girls and their families. You can read more of the founding story at http://www.fashionplaytes.com/contents/behind-the-seams.

As the company has grown since our launch in 2009 we have received many requests to expand our clothing line beyond our current market of girls aged 5-12. Over the next several months we’ll be releasing products for boys and adults. We appreciate your comments and concerns and look forward to new things in 2012.

Sally Robinson
Business Analyst
FashionPlaytes.com

- Sally Robinson on February 6th, 2012

I find the amount of make up on these girl utterly atrocious. Has anyone thought about teaching girls about the graphic side of designing? Give them crayons and paper, let their minds go wild.

Here’s an idea: why not get the kids out of the house and outside? The more kids are active, the more they’re apt to be creative. Anyone thought about that?

- sushi on February 6th, 2012

Sally Robinson, i appreciate your response but it somewhat misses the point. my question is why separate ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ stuff in the first place? why not just make something where kids can design clothes? what about boys who play with dolls? girls who want to design boys clothes not sparkly, shiny, pink, tiaras?

there is no need for any toy or toy accessory to be labelled as ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys’.

also, just to clarify i have no problem with girls liking traditionally girly things. i have two daughters one loves dresses, pink and purple, princesses etc. the other loves dinosaurs, football, rugby, playing outdoors and getting dirty. i encourage them to each follow what they love, whatever that may be. i just don’t feel that it is necessary to separate childrens’ toys by gender.

- JM on February 7th, 2012

Love this concept! I can’t sew, so this is a great way for my daughter to give designing a try. I haven’t been able to get her off the site since we saw this. She’s designed one of everything! I hope the clothes are as nice as they look.

- Sally Robinson on February 7th, 2012

T & Sushi, I’m with you but we will have a very long wait if we expect the site to promote physical activity — there’s no $ to be made in that.

Oh, and Sally Robinson — you’re busted. You just found out the hard way that you can’t change your moniker on this site.

- cn tower on February 7th, 2012

ha cn tower, nice one. i guess there won’t be a (or another) response from sally robinson.

and on principle, yes, i do agree that i don’t really think we need another activity where kids are on the computer. all my kids are enrolled in some kind of sport. and i don’t think you necessarily need a computer to be creative like this. my son got the idea to make clothes for his teddy because i told him about how i did it when i was a kid, and we definitely didn’t have a computer then. he drew some designs with felttips and paper, then adapted some of the clothes he already had for his teddy. we also bought some cheap, plain dolls clothes that we knew would fit his teddy and then he drew things on them and i sewed some stuff on for him.

he is a little too young to learn sewing but maybe next year he can learn.

don’t need to spend a lot of money and hours on the computer. it was a fun activity for us to do together and his siblings have since joined in.

- JM on February 7th, 2012

JM – sounds like you have a very creative son!! Lucky you. How old is he?

- cn tower on February 8th, 2012

Sally, you just lost my business. First, you advertise solely for girls. Then when asked about it, pretty much ignore the question. Then……you leave a comment, to promote you on product!

So, you don’t include all genders, have bad customer service and are tacky!!! Next……

- Jillian on February 9th, 2012

thanks cntower.

he is 4 and 1/2. i should probably clarify that the clothes clearly look like a child made them. i mean most of them are tops or hats and stuff and he has drawn something on them or told me where he wants me to sew something on. but it was fun for him and for me.

he is very much into arts and crafts, more so than any of my other four kids. i’m glad because it’s one of my favourite things to do with my kids.

- JM on February 9th, 2012