Launch My Line: Merle's Collection

Time to check in with our girl Merle.

We said that we would have given the win to Merle and we almost talked ourselves out of that when we looked at Kathy's winning collection, but we're nothing if not fickle bitches and now we're swinging back around to the Merle side.

Not to be dismissive, but we've already talked about most of these looks, even if some of them have been altered. Rather than do a look by look rundown, let's just look at the collection as a whole.












Wow. Looking at it all together like this, we're struck by two things: how beautiful this collection is and how cohesive it is. There is only one look we don't like, the track suit, and even then we can admit that it's a pretty good design even if we don't like track suits.

Her color story is good, but she could have used some brighter or more saturated tones to offset all the overwhelming brown-ness. That orange and that pop of pink went a long way.

Here's the thing: judging by their commentary, it would appear that the biggest detriment to her winning the whole thing was her gimmick of making each outfit convertible in some way. We share that point of view with the judges. A gimmick, by its very nature, is going to cast the collection in a particularly down-scale light. Nothing wrong with putting a collection together of salable looks that the average woman could use to expand her wardrobe, but that's not what Merle and Thai did. They went for a particularly upscale aesthetic which forces the question: What woman out there is in the market for a red carpet gown that also converts into a cocktail dress? Answer: there's no such woman.

BUT.

She stated her gimmick with the first outfit and with every subsequent outfit. If the judges didn't think her gimmick was a good idea, they had a half-dozen chances to tell her that and they didn't. In a way, they kind of screwed her over because had the judges criticized her gimmick early, we have no doubt that Merle would have been smart enough to course-correct. She took every judge's criticism to heart and altered the offending garments accordingly. Had she known they didn't like the gimmick, she would have tossed it.

So now we're kind of back to saying that Merle should have won it. We didn't like the gimmick either, but every single one of these garments stands alone without it. That's a testament to both Merle and Thai. There may have been a gimmick involved, but they clearly put all their energy into making beautiful clothing first.

[Photos: Trae Patton/BravoTV.com]


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