Fashion Playtes was a website created for young girls to design their own clothing. This great idea came to founder Sarah McIlroy when she remembered her childhood memories of sketching clothes and having her mom create and sew her designs.
The Fashion Playtes brand offered custom clothing catering to girls age 5 – 12 years old and was based in Salem, Massachussets. Aside from being a great shopping site for tweens, it is also an online community where design ideas and fashion collections are encouraged to be created. Design projects can be done by the tweens themselves or with the assistance of parents or guardians.
Since the Fashion Playtes shop unfortunately is already offline for more than a few months, customers have to look for alternatives. The online marketplace Etsy where people around the world connect to make, sell and buy unique goods offers a wide range of custom dresses, which can also be customized since most of them are handmade.
Another great shop is Sumissura, which offers a broad selection of custom skirts, suits, shirts, jackets, pants and coats. Prices for custom skirts starting at $79 and custom shirts and blouses can be designed from $49. Delivery is free for orders over $100 and the company offers a “Perfect Fit Guarantee”.
Fashion Playtes Custom Design Tool
The Fashion Playtes customizable clothing include dresses, tops (blouses and t-shirts), bottoms (jeans and skirts), outerwear (jackets), loungewear, doll clothing and accessories. Overall, the site has over 40 customizable items available, which can all be personalized with a selection of different colors and prints, labels and other age-appropriate embellishments and accents. The sizes available are Small, Medium, Large, X-Large and XX-Large.
They have a DIY Design System in their website that displays all the options for design, size and embellishments. There is a 6-step process to creating your own custom clothing and the image displayed on the page will be updated as you go along. The overall feel of the design app is enthusing for young girls, making it very effective to use. However, it could still use a few upgrades and improvements. For one, the images do not portray the exact illustration of the fabric and this can create some confusion. Also, there are no detailed instructions displayed before going through the process. This can be a big help to kids when creating custom clothes.
In terms of design options, the Fashion Playtes website does provide a good amount of choices – from cute prints to embellishments like rhinestone appliqués and underlayers. You can also create your very own fashion label, which you can use in all your clothing designs. Because you can save your design, you can build a fashion collection with your personalized label like a real designer. The prices are very affordable and start at under $20. Each appliqué or additional design will cost an additional fee (from $4 – $10). The price for your custom creation will be updated as you go through the design process.
Overall, Fashion Playtes is a wonderful place for young girls to build a community and be original. It fairs well in both visual aspect and design tool performance. More than being able to provide quality custom clothing, it also encourages kids to be creative and original.