My eight year old daughter had wanted one of these for ages and bought it with her pocket money. ( not purchased here but from a well known catalougue based retailer)
She thinks it is brilliant and has used it everyday,(bought 5 days ago )
She has also been online to the Harukima website and uploaded some of her designs and also made online designs. She wants to be a fashion designer when she grows up.
However my opinion is slightly less enthusiastic.
I think it is over priced for a few flimsy looking pieces of plastic and some scraps of fabric which are already begining to fray.
We are going to buy some cheap ribbon and fabric remnants from the local market.
The manequins themselves seem very unsteady, and Im not sure how long the plasic groove thing at the back will keep gripping without becoming too slack.
The website is of course a glorified advertising site, but my daughter has had lots of fun using it.
We found it difficult to upload photos at first, instructions are not very clear and initialy it seems that you need to purchase the harukima camera ( no chance)
However I contacted customer services and recieved a prompt reply pointing me in the right direction. You upload photos from your digital camera and click on the camera icon in 'my store' then 'my photos' then 'browse' as you would for any attachment/ insertion.Then 'save'. For some reason we are then getting the message that we've been unsucessful but when we go back to 'my store ' the photos are there.
You then have to wait for the photos to be approved (by a site moderator I assume.)
You are only allowed to publish photos of your manequins, photos of faces will be not be allowed so theres no worries of your child putting photos of her/himself on the site
I also had to contact them to find out what the UPCcode was that's needed to 'unlock' more design options. ( its a number under the bar code on the pack, therefore the more you buy the more online stuff you can design! )
Once again I recievd a reply within a few hours.
So my overall rating reflects what my daughter thinks as much as my opinions.
I gave it 5* for fun because for her, it is
I gave it 4* for educational because it does encourage creativity.
I've only given it 2* for durabilty because of the fraying fabric and the flimsy looking plasic.
It would have scored higher if the price was lower.
I can't fault their customer services.