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Saturday, 23 March 2013

Review: Harumika Designer Dress Form Set

For the last year or so my 5 year old twins have been pestering me every time we go in our local Entertainer store. 'Please Mummy, can we have one of those?', 'Ohh look Mummy, I like those....', 'When I'm a big girl will you buy me those mummy, they look such fun' and on and on.

They were talking about the range of Harumika mannequins that you can fashion outfits on and I'm ashamed to say that I always just briefly looked at them and dismissed them out of hand thinking they would be complex and for girls of a much older age. I didn't even pick the box up and look, if I had I would have seen that the recommended age range is 6 years upwards. Not so different to my 5 year old girls and of course with supervision children can often tackle toys designed for older children.

I also wrongly assumed that designing the outfits would entail needle and thread or otherwise glue and looking at the small dress makers dummies I just assumed it would all be too fiddly. I think I have learnt my lesson after receiving a pack to review. It really is very simple, have a look-


I always have some one on one time with each child and Miss E is my most creative one and the one who had badgered me the most for Harumika, so I got this set out when it was just the two of us and oh how she adored this. And shhh don't spill the beans but so did I!  It really is very good fun and your imagination can run riot.

I'll be honest when the pack arrived I thought it looked quite small and wondered how much interest it would hold, you can see from the picture what was included. This size set retails for £18 at the Entertainer. A set this size includes 2 mannequins both with the unique style lock system on the back, 4 pieces of material, a sheet of both regular stickers and holographic stickers, a couple of pieces of ribbon and a stylus. What I would say is don't be fooled by how small or plasticy this looks, it is fabulous and provided so much fun.  My other twin loves it as well and it has become the go-to toy of choice.

The thing I loved is that there is no need for glue, needle or anything like that, you simply wrap the fabric and tuck it into the silicon slot in the back using the stylus.  Only one stylus came with the set so we used a tool we had from play-doh but really anything slim and plastic will do.  I also has some small swatches of fabric from my card making and the girls had ribbon in their craft box so these came out to extend the fun.


It is really simple once you have dressed your mannequin to just rip the dress off and start again, so this is the best value toy from that point of view, nothing gets used or wasted.  Even the stickers stand being ripped off and put back on the sheet a few times, yes we will need to get more long-term but the girls would be happy to play with this with just fabric and ribbons anyway.

Here are a few of their creations -


Verdict - I will happily give the Harumika range a big thumbs up, as my girls are enthralled with it.  Miss E said to tell you it is excellent and Miss M says awesome. A big thank you to Bandai who sent us this set.

I have not been instricted what to write and I remain honest.

1 comment:

  1. I got this for my neice before and she loved it! I gave her a load of fabric scraps too for extra fun.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment, I will respond real soon. Mich x