The mermaid tsunami has taken over the best part of this decade. We have seen mermaid brands create beautiful and creative tails, from high-end silicon tails, to individually-sewn scales, to mermaid leggings.
We bought our first mermaid tails from different brands, but the need to have more styles to wear (one for Monday, one for Tuesday…) we just absolutely needed to make our own! I have been printing textiles and producing fashion for nearly five years (this was in 2015) so we do have the technical experience.
Brace yourselves for a long-ish post as I want to include as much information about all the range of tails we have made, as well as teaser and behind-the-scenes on the process of our newest range SeaTitan mermaid tails! So pour yourselves a glass of wine or lobster juice or whatever floats your fins!
I have been designing textiles since 2012 for fashion, and when I started making mermaid tails, I realized how EASY it was compared to laying out prints for clothing patterns. The hardest to get right, however, was the scales. It was so hard to get right size-wise, design-wise, and style-wise. I had wanted to create realistic ones but realise the tools I've had before and the skills I had were not as developed as I thought.
The first mermaid tail we developed was based around the Atlantis Finis fin, and we wanted to create mermaid "basics," of solid colors.
Using the same pattern, we elaborated a bit more and created the SPECTRUM collection which featured colors that would best describe paradise, dreams, nightmares, and sunsets.
Our last collection using these fins were the TROPICANA collection that we launched at the PULLMAN KUTA resort in Bali. This collection was inspired by Barry Manilow's Copacabana. One trip we actually sung this song maybe 100 times a day, and only the parts that we knew...which was mainly just... "copa--copacabana" Yes we needed to detox after that trip! We paired these tails with hand-sewn bras as well.
Not long after, we discovered merfins by Mahina, and this completely changed the game for us, as we had started to receive competition from other local mermaid brands who were using the same monofins. Our first SeaSiren tails, the Galatea and Reign, until today remain to be our biggest hits and best sellers.
We developed many new colors afterwards, many were custom-orders, and some just inspired by our trip around Indonesia, like Sumba, Flores, and Raja Ampat.
In the SeaQueen tails, we explored different flukes, by adding additional fins on the topsides, and added shell-sequins to the scales. This was one of the hardest and laborious tails we had to do, and although it wasn't such a great hit, they were gorgeous!
We are currently developing our latest tails, which features an integrated structure to help build the form of an extended fluke based on the Mahina Merfin. My background is in fashion, so this series, titled SeaTitan, is very conceptual and takes the mermaid out of the usual fantasy-environment, and into a more glam and refined level.
This is also the first time I use Procreate on my iPad to create the scales and the colorings, as I used Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom Intuos before. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the work flow as it was lag-free and untinterrupted by my Sims 3 going nuts in the background of my MacBook (my Mer-Sim has a deathwish and always swims for hours at night and risks getting eaten by the Kraken). The Wacom Intuos has a lag to it, so it was hard to play with layers and the motion of my smart pen was choppy, so I couldn't create the soft gradation of colors that my iPad and Procreate could give me.
The scales are completely new, and with the Calligraphy brush tools on procreate I was able to create smoother and more realistic lines as apposed to the computerised lines I get on Adobe Illustrator.
The embellishments took me about a day and a half, as the combination of Swarovski flat back, gold sequins, and Swarovski hot-fix took a long time to arrange and sew. Needless to say, the money I earn from making this prototype will pay for a full head-to-toe body massage and spa for me :D Or a bottle of Ciroc, I haven't decided yet.
Creation is magic. It is satisfying, and it is so multi-levelled that the challenge is exciting. I'm not religious, but now I understand how much fun The Big Man Up There had when he made mermaids.