HONG KONG -- Barbie’s finally ditched her goody-two-shoes image she’s even gotten a tattoo.

In a recent experiment by Mattel to test local creativity, 20 design students in Hong Kong were given two days to dress up the venerable doll and the results certainly have turned heads.

On Friday, 42-year-old Barbie strutted her stuff for the media in 20 outfits.

One of the most eye-catching was an off-the-shoulder, bare-backed dinner gown with a stunning dragon tattoo running down her entire back.

“I want her to look sexy and mysterious. Barbie has a very healthy image, but there must be other sides to her,” said Wingo Wong, a design student at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, who called his creation “Tattoo Barbie.”

Parents, however, need not worry their children may be tainted by the less-than-wholesome Barbie as toy giant Mattel Inc. has no plans to mass produce her.

“The project is about creating and imagination. Mattel was very impressed and very happy with the designs, but production is not the main focus,” said associate professor Peter Dean of the School of Design at the university.

Barbie, who has dressed in her best for more than 80 careers over the years, including a U.S. presidential candidate, also betrayed a macabre streak at the university exhibition.

Her hair tied back in a long thick plait, Barbie was dressed from neck to ankle in two-piece flower printed paper pajamas -- much like the paper effigies that superstitious Chinese burn so that their dead ancestors may be waited on in the afterlife.

But the creator of the “Paper Wrap Barbie” said there was nothing hair-raising about that outfit.

“It’s not meant to be macabre. I think Chinese paper effigies are very beautiful and I want people to appreciate them,” said design student Eileen Ng.

China now manufacturers much of the world’s toys with Hong Kong involved in engineering and tests, and sooner or later, local designing talent will be tapped, Dean said.

“It costs a lot of money to have designers in the U.S. People will be coming to Hong Kong for design work. If Mattel does it, others will follow,” he told Reuters.

“In the future, customers will just need to state their needs, and Hong Kong and China can do the rest.”