Dress-up is a game played mainly by children. It involves dressing up, usually to impersonate someone or something, like an animal or character in a fairy tale. The type of clothes they dress up in often resembles who they are trying to be, either adults' clothing or special play clothes designed specifically for dress-up like feather boas and jewelry.
More and more tweens are taking to the internet to talk with friends, shop and play games. In recent years, the most popular girls games have been dress up and fashion games which allow girls to dress and customize virtual dolls, go shopping and complete challenges. The newest virtual dress up sites allow users to make new friends and chat with other users while they play with their pretend dolls.
It is said to help children strengthen their imagination and helps with learning, since it's a form of make-believe and role-playing. The game is most popular among girls, usually from ages 2-8.
This is a brief list of some of the things children play when they engage in dress-up:
In the mid-to-late 1990s websites began creating interactive virtual 'Dress Up Games' in which a person can drag and drop clothes onto a paper doll-like image. As with Paper dolls, the virtual dolls can be based on actual people. Several websites provide a directory of dress-up games and are updated regularly to list the new games that appear online. There are now also many online dress up arcade sites specialising in interactive flash-based dress up games.
By 2010, dress up games had changed; graphics and game play have dramatically improved from the 90s. Websites update and add new games close to every week to month. Before websites would require registration to play these games, but nowadays most of them are free. Dress-up websites can help children and anyone that play with their color coordination and imagination. To parents and some teachers these websites can be considered a waste of time but imagination is crucial to a child's growth and development. Many children play dress up because they show interest in what they want to be when they finally grow up. With the increase of internet use having games and websites that contain dress-up game content will provide assistance for their growth.