Fashion Plates

Today we steer away from board games and wrap-up August with one of my favorites:  Fashion Plates

These toys were awesome, and I obviously liked them, considering that my sister and I had at least three of them (we still have three today).  As a kid I pretty much enjoyed playing with anything which involved coloring and drawing, so these were right up my alley.  Kind of ironic though....I am definitely no Monet these days.  Anywho (shout out to CQ), below are our surviving Fashion Plates:

All of the above were phenomenal products of Hasbro.  The first two are copyrighted 1989, the last one with the bear has a copyright stamp from 1991. Fashion Plates operated as follows: You'd select from 2-3 versions of plates and place them in the drawing area.  You'd then place a piece of paper over the plates and close the frame around them.  You'd rub the side of the supplied crayon over the paper on the plates, revealing the design below.  I was too dumb to realize this as a child, but examining the plates today I realized that on the reverse side of the plates were designs that could serve as a pattern to infill the clothes outlines.  Pretty neato.  I've gotta try this out.

The original fashion plates were products of the 19th century, when images were created to display the latest ladies' fashions in mail order catalogs.  The 1980s Hasbro version doesn't stray too far from that idea.  With the first Fashion plate, you could choose from a variety of heads, torsos, and bottoms sporting a wide variety of clothing styles.  This toy was obviously a product of the 80s because no one today wears loafers with knee-highs and shorts or MC Hammer pants.  This are tell-tale signs of 80s fashions.  As are the results of my early days as a make-up artist:

What was so great about the Face Fashion Plates was that it came with eye shadow and blush.  I was a big fan of applying copious amounts of blue eyeshadow to the brow line.  At times I may have gone a bit overboard with the blush, but what did I know?  I was five.  I'm not sure of the exact date of the artwork to the left, but I'm thinking it was done in the early to mid 90s, because I doubt that even I was that good at staying in the lines as a five year old.  I was, however, aware enough of the world around me to create a diverse array of faces.  I don't remember using the smaller plates with the bear all that often.  There is evidence of my sister writing her name with the crayon on the plastic (not recommended as a mode of play).  She did the same thing (backwards) on my big Fashion Plates drawing area. 

I'll leave you with this image detailing the raised design on the plates.  I hope other people enjoyed playing with these as much as I did.  I'm pretty sure they're still around, a true testament to their greatness.