5 sites for giving your gifts a personal touch

Tailoritaly is an online shopping platform for women, launched a little over a year ago. It allows you to buy customised clothing that fits your own style. The autumn-winter 2016 collection presented on the website includes 13 items of clothing and 2 accessories. The fashion line is 100% made in Italy and consists of basic items like trench coats, winter coats, skirts, trousers, t-shirts, and blouses. You can customise each garment online by selecting the features you like e.g. from different types of necklines or sleeves. You can also add contrasting pieces, bows, and different buttons. By enabling the customisation of these 13 pieces of clothing, Tailoritaly allows for the creation of a total of 800 different variations, priced between €69 and €285. Any changes you make instantly show up on your screen. Once your online order has been placed, you will receive your clothes free of charge within 10 days.

Budsies is ideal for anyone who wants to give their children (or anyone else for that matter) a special surprise for Christmas. Budsies will produce any stuffed toy that your little one can dream up. All you have to do is upload or send a picture of a drawing to the site. Within about five weeks, the drawing will be transformed into a stuffed toy! To date, Budsies has sold more than 32,000 plush toys, all made with hypoallergenic materials recommended for children 3 years and older and in strict adherence with high quality standards. In addition, the site offers ‘Selfies’, letting you turn your family into needle-and-thread creations, as well as ‘Petsies’, where you can order stuffed animals that look like your four-legged friends. Prices start at $89 (a little over €80).

 Lanieri is entirely devoted to men’s fashion, with products that are 100% made in Italy. Lanieri handles the entire process of making men’s suits, from the choice of material to the actual sewing, which is entrusted to Italian tailors. Everything can be done online: on the website, customers can choose from 100 different types of material in different colours and patterns and accessorise their garment with various buttons, belts, pocket squares, etc. In total, the site offers more than 10 million possible combinations. If you are interested, you can buy a set of 5 fabric samples online for €10, which will be reimbursed once you actually buy a suit. After you have made your choices and given your measurements (to do this, you can follow a tutorial on the Lanieri website or go to one of their shops and get help from a stylist), you can order your suit. In addition to suits, Lanieri also offers shirts, blazers, accessories, and more. Shipping is free throughout the world and takes 4 to 5 weeks.

Find original cups, cutting boards, games, whisky barrels, bags, t-shirts, and much more at uncommongoods.com. This website lets you customise items and find all sorts of unusual objects. Depending on what you order, delivery will take a few days or a few weeks. If you are really pressed for time, you can buy and print a gift certificate so that you have a little something to put under the Christmas tree. 

Another option for personalising your gifts is, of course, to get your hands dirty making them yourself.
This last option lets you upcycle and give very personal gifts, while also keeping your costs down. Pinterest can help inspire you to try out new ideas! Let your curiosity run wild and type the keywords for what you want to create into the search bar (which is very useful!). If you are feeling uninspired, you can just type ‘DIY’ into the search bar.