Just call me Donatella...

I feel like I'm regressing back to my childhood days of stripping my Barbies of their clothes and mixing and matching all of their outfits. For as long as I can remember I've always loved playing dress up and "designing" clothes; remember that toy, Fashion Wheel, were you created outfits and then crayoned over textured bits of plastic to make the patterns? Pretty basic idea really, like when you colour over a coin, or some bricks, or the dog , but it provided hours of good wholesome fun. My sister had a bridal version and I would literally spend all day creating different combinations of dresses and colouring them all in (a little obsessively now that I think about it...).

Ah, crayons and side ponytails...those were the days...

Well you already know that I spend a little bit too much time on Polyvore, making dream outfits for my future when I'm married to a rich old gentleman named Floyd and have money to spend at Brown's, but I've discovered another website to waste the day on - Style Shake. Now when I say 'discovered' that's not strictly true because I've had an account on there for at least a year and had played around with it a bit before, but it's only recently that I've realised how much fun it is! Kind of like a Fashion Wheel for the Noughties, Style Shake allows you to design your very own dresses, skirts and tops, section by section - you choose the fabric, the colour, the length, sleeves, neckline and you can even add extras like belts and collars. There are literally thousands of possible combinations, from floaty linen dresses to super glamourous silk party ones! But the real beauty is that once you've finished designing, you can choose to have the item made to fit your measurements, so you end up with a one of a kind garment, designed by you and for you! Brilliant!

I've not actually ordered anything from the website as, despite the fact everything's very reasonably priced, considering you're getting a bespoke piece, I'm depressingly low on funds and need to save up for Christmas presents and New Year boozing. But I've read some really positive testimonials on there from people who have purchased things and it sounds like all in all, the Style Shake team run a pretty good tailoring service. They also have a photo gallery showing how some designs would look on actual people rather than on the scary, bald mannequins used on the rest of the site, and they do look really pretty!

Images taken from styleshake.com

Here are a few of my designs - they just go to show how many different possibilities there are!

Now I know that whole 'malnourished' look is in for models, but these guys look seriously ill...