Barbie Fashion Show (Windows)

In BARBIE FASHION SHOW, players team up with Barbie to design outfits for 20 fashion collections including "School Spirit" and "Barbie Bridal," and they choreograph fashion shows to display their creations. To create outfits, kids head to Barbie's Design Table to pick from over 70 clothing patterns including tops, bottoms, and dresses. and then create the clothing by choosing from over 240 different fabrics. When a collection is complete, players choose among Barbie and four of her friends to model the outfits. Next, budding fashion designers customize their own fashion shows by choosing the shape of the stage, the background, the runway textures, the stage decorations, the music, the lights, and the models' moves.

Barbie's friends have different skin colors that hint at ethnicity, but the faces all resemble Barbie's so this attempt at diversity is lukewarm at best. Cleverly, the program doesn't give players all the patterns and fabric options in the beginning -- they are unlocked gradually during the first 10 assignments. An easy-to-use interface and special brushes allow kids to combine fabrics; 80 different decals add pizzazz. Kids can even try to share their creations by uploading them to www.Barbie.com, where Mattel will select some of the designs to post.

Available on: Windows
Not available online
Genre: Girl
Developer: Vivendi Universal Games
Released on: September 29, 2004
Price: 29.99
ESRB Rating: E