Dress-up is a

children's game This is a list of games that are played by children. Traditional children's games do not include commercial products such as board games but do include games which require props such as hopscotch or marbles (toys go in List of toys unless the t ...

in which

costumes Costume is the distinctive style of clothing, dress and/or cosmetics, makeup of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch—in short, culture. The term also was traditionally used ...

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...

are put on a person or on a

doll A doll is a physical model, model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and ...

, for

role-playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing ...

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

purposes. In the UK the game is called dressing up. In the mid-1990s, dress-up games also became a

video game genre A video game genre is an informal classification of a video game based on how it is played rather than Computer graphics, visual or narrative elements. This is independent of setting (fiction), setting, unlike works of fiction that are expressed ...

in which customizing a virtual character's appearance is the primary focus.

Paper dolls

The extension of playing dress up onto dolls made of paper can be traced back as far as the mid-1700s. They have enjoyed great popularity around the world, as they are relatively cheap to produce, yet still offer a rich, dress up experience. They had been published in books, in newspapers and in magazines. In the 20th century, the genre was dominated by dolls created by artist Tom Tierny.

Virtual dress-up

Early dolls

In the mid- to late 1990s, webmasters began creating interactive virtual dress-up games in which a person could

drag and drop In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user (computing), user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, i ...

clothes onto a paper doll-like image. One of the most notable early adaptors of virtual dress up technology were the

Kisekae Set System Kisekae Set System (commonly known as KiSS) is a blending of art with computers originally designed to allow creation of virtual " paper dolls". Kisekae is short for , a Japanese term meaning "dress-up dolls". Unlike "computer art" which creates o ...

(KiSS), which were developed in Japan. These stand-alone games featured a manga-styled model and a small wardrobe. The next phenomenon was Dollz: small, pixel-art GIF images that were presented scattered on websites, and allowed users to be dragged onto the pixel dolls. Dollz are generally created by taking a base body (a drawing of a bald and naked body created for this purpose), and then drawing hair, clothes and accessories onto it. The creators are usually women. Dollz were first created to be used as avatars on The Palace Chat Program in 1995. The invention of dollz is attributed to Melicia Greenwood (also known as , or ), mainly because of her detailed web publishing on the history of dollz. Her new

avatars Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...

were freely distributed on the main Palace server, the "Mansion". Within weeks thousands of creatively modified dollz were redistributed around the many Palace servers, replacing the default smiley face avatars that were previously used. Many teenagers adopted dollz avatars as a sign of rebellion against older Palace users.

Adobe Flash

By 2007, dress up games had changed. With the introduction of Macromedia (later Adobe) Flash technology, the number of dress-up games creators dramatically increased. Flash offered a visual-based way for artists to learn simple programming, and put a powerful tool in the hands of doll enthusiasts. The number of games and websites grew, as companies found easy success in a market that was previously under-supplied.

Doll maker renaissance

In the late 2010s, a few websites managed by dedicated dress up fans utilized Adobe Flash to create dress up games that also allow complete customization of the featured character, advancing the genre to "doll makers". These applications also featured extensive hairstyle and clothing choices, allowing for longer gameplay. The games pushed beyond the usual stereotypes of the genre, and expanded to more pop culture and fantasy themes.

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