When I was a kid, my very favourite toy was Fashion Wheel. Readers in the US might not know what this is, but I'm sure they'll remember Fashion Plates which was very similar. You set the plastic head, body and legs of your choice, rubbed the black crayon over it (similar to brass rubbings), then coloured it in. And you could even use the plates to create a texture for the fabric. It was genius. Never mind that the crayon always made the faces look all smeary!
Recently I saw a post on Apartment Therapy about Fashion Plates and it made me start hankering after my Fashion Wheel, so a quick trip to Ebay later and I was the proud owner of an early 1990s model. The clothes (and heads) are slightly different to mine, which was more 70s style even though I had it in the late 80s. The special crayon had long since disappeared so I tried out a Conté crayon and a normal wax crayon and both were very smeary, I'll have to work out how to do it so it doesn't smear so much. Some of my ladies' faces look like they have been kicked! I cleaned up the outlines a bit in Photoshop so they looked a bit tidier.
Here's Richard's Fashion Wheel drawing (below). This version comes with a plate with a cat and a dalmation on it which is quite cool :-) Somehow his was less smeary than mine, maybe he didn't press so hard.
Did anyone else have Fashion Wheel or Fashion Plates? What creative toys did you like when you were a kid?
14 comments:
Cool! ^^ I had something with action figures too(from Japan), and you need to cut them out, and you could change the clothes on the guy, pretty similar to transparencies, except that they were papers :Þ
oh my god! I had one of these and loved, loved, loved it to pieces! oh the memories... thank you
Mine wasn't exactly the same but I had one like it! So much fun, good memories.
My daughter had some fashion plates. Have you tried colored pencil?
Never seen one of these before. Looks like a fun toy-one you could spend hours with.
I totally had fashion plates as a kid. What a blast from the past! I used colored pencils with them though, which made them come out neater.
I also have a book of fashion drawings I made when I was 11 or so. You've inspired me to look those up and scan them in sometime...
Oh the joy!
I had completely forgotten about this.
My sister and I shared one. I think ours was a re-incarnation of yours. It had the different textures/patterns but I think the clothes and hair were different. How cool to have found one!
I never had Fashion Plates, but I always wanted to try them. It looks so cool. Would pencil work? It might be less smeary. Or maybe it wouldn't work. Thanks for sharing!
I'm so glad so many people remember Fashion Wheel! I've been having a bit of a fiddle around with various pencils etc to see if I can make it less smeary... I'll post an update soon.
OMG! I had completely forgotten about this and how much I loved them! I must try to find my "designs"
I totally forgot about Fashion Plates - so much fun.
Thanks for reminding me :)
OMG - I had a fashion plates when I was a kid - I had fogotten until I found your post via the unravelling blog list
add me to the list of people who loved fashion plates as a kit and completely forgotten about their existance! Thanks for the memory trip.
Ooh I had something like that. I distinctly remember getting it from my grandmother. I loved drawing ridiculous patterns on them nobody would ever dare wear in public.
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