So You Want To Be A Designer...

Not satisfied with the summer basics you find on the rack? Companies like Polo Ralph Lauren are offering shoppers all kinds of customizing services. At polo.com, browsers can design their own polo shirts, choosing from a selection of 32 body colors and 12 pony-logo colors. Shirts are made to order and delivered within two weeks. Next month oxford shirts, below, complete with the date of origin stitched into the lower-right seam above the vent, will be available for customization in 11 colors and 8 pony-color options. The idea for the service came when customers began asking for the classic shirts in offbeat colors. Now custom orders amount to roughly 10% of the website's business. "Even my dad is ordering them for himself," says David Lauren, the designer's son and the senior vice president of advertising and marketing at Polo. "It definitely goes beyond the tradition of people cutting off their jeans to make shorts."