Donna Naseby of Whitley Bay, pictured with daughter Ellie, 11, and son Taylor, 8.

WHAT’S the best way to get hold of some clothes that your child actually wants to wear? How about letting them create their wardrobe themselves?

Day nursery owner Donna Naseby, pictured with daughter Ellie, 11, and son Taylor, 8, was hunting around for themes for her own daughter’s birthday party when she came up with an idea that became U Design Studio, a site which allows children to create and share fashion designs by dressing up cute characters called Odd Bods.

The idea is that children log on to the site and dress and style their Odd Bod, which can then be shared with friends or printed on to a range of clothing and accessories from T-shirts to hoodies and bags.

Whether the design includes the Odd Bod or not, the designer can also drag and drop buttons, bows, badges, zips and patches on to the garment, as well as choose size and colour.

The designs can be viewed by family, friends and other users in the gallery, and there are a variety of games linked on the site. The project is currently being trialled in certain schools in the region.

Naseby said: “I was looking for ideas for my daughter’s birthday party and ended up doing a fashion design party, which was a great success.

“My daughter is 10 and I struggle to buy clothes for her that she likes. This allows children to build up their wardrobe with their own designs, and allows their ideas to become a reality.

“There’s a huge thing around creative learning at the moment, and they don’t need to buy the products, they can just play around on the site.”

Naseby was awarded a bronze medal at the 2005 British invention Show for her Gemini Pushchair, a twin pushchair which can be split into two singles. The Gemini didn’t get the investment necessary to get it to the next stage, but Naseby is looking for angel investors for the new U Design Studio project to develop other elements of the project. She already has customers using the http://www.udesignstudio.co.uk/ site, which was designed by Newcastle and London-design studio Komodo Digital.

She said: “I had a vision for the project and how I wanted it to go, but Komodo were fantastic and extremely creative. There are a few things out there at the moment like Moshi Monsters, Club Penguin and even the Build a Bear Workshop which encourage child creativity.

“For me, U Design Studio is a platform with a huge amount of potential. I want to have Sims-style characters that users can look after.”