From television and film to music videos, fashion,
advertising, aquariums and live entertainment,
Mertailor mermaid tails have traveled a lot farther
than our Florida workshop.
A few of the tails, people, productions and wonderfully
unexpected places that became part of the Mertailor story.
From the Mertailor Archives
A Lot of Tails. A Lot of Stories.
For more than two decades, Mertailor has been commissioned
to create mermaid tails for an incredibly varied collection
of clients — musicians, film and television productions,
fashion editorials, advertising campaigns, aquariums,
resorts, professional performers and live entertainment.
Sometimes you knew you were looking at a Mertailor tail.
A lot of the time, you probably didn't.
Made by Mertailor
From Our Workshop to the Screen.
The names on this page aren't simply press mentions.
Mertailor was commissioned to create or provide mermaid
tails for the clients, productions, performers and
projects featured here. A few became especially
memorable chapters in our history.
A Few Favorites
Projects We Still Talk About.
Twenty years creates a pretty large archive.
These are a few of the projects that deserve
a little more room than a line in a client list.
2013 · Fashion + Editorial
Far, Far From Land
W Magazine · Tim Walker · Kristen McMenamy
In 2013, Mertailor created the mermaid tail worn
by Kristen McMenamy for Tim Walker's extraordinary
W Magazine editorial,
Far, Far From Land.
The original W credits put it rather simply:
“Mermaid tail by the Mertailor Eric Ducharme.”
From Eric
More than a decade later, this is still one
of my favorite projects I've ever had the
opportunity to create a tail for.
2014 La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival ·
Eric Ducharme was credited among the winning
costume designers.
2014 · Award-Winning Fashion Film
Kiss of a Siren
NuMe
Mertailor created the mermaid tail for NuMe's
cinematic fashion film Kiss of a Siren,
directed by Miguel Gauthier and Viktorija Pashuta.
The film entered the 2014 La Jolla International
Fashion Film Festival with eight nominations,
including Best Makeup, Best Hair, Best Director
and Best Film.
It left with two wins: Best Film and
Best Costume Design.
2016 · Music
Feral Hearts
Kerli
Mertailor created the mermaid tail featured in
Kerli's visually striking Feral Hearts
music video.
It was another Mertailor tail that left the
workshop and found its way into an entirely
different creative world.
2012 · Creative Production
The MerQueen's Calendar
Mermaid Tails · Photography · Production
Mertailor helped produce and coordinate
The MerQueen's Calendar, creating mermaid
tails and working directly with performers from
RuPaul's Drag Race, including Yara Sofia,
Carmen Carrera, Pandora Boxx, Jessica Wild,
Sonique Love, Mariah Balenciaga, Alexis Mateo,
Jujubee and Mimi Imfurst.
Eric also photographed and created promotional
imagery for the project, with some of that
imagery later used by the performers themselves.
2011 · Music + Television
Lady Gaga
Le Grand Journal · The Edge of Glory
Mertailor created the custom mermaid tail worn
by Lady Gaga for her televised performance of
The Edge of Glory on
Le Grand Journal in Paris.
Not every project in the Mertailor archive came
home with a perfect photograph. Some survived
simply as one very memorable credit.
From the Mertailor Archives
Behind the Tails.
Some projects came with polished finished photographs.
Others left us with wonderfully imperfect
behind-the-scenes pictures. We kept those too.
2009 · Music + Television
Saturday Night Live · I'm on a Boat
Mertailor tails created for the production
featuring T-Pain.
2012 · Television
Germany's Next Top Model
Custom Mertailor mermaid tails created for
the television production.
Behind the Scenes
From the Production Archive
One of the many behind-the-scenes images
collected along the way.
Twenty Years Gets Interesting
And we're still finding things in the archive.
More to Come
The Archive Isn't Finished.
Apparently neither is our memory.
Where Our Tails Have Been
The Mertailor Client Archive.
Film sets. Music videos. Aquariums. Casinos.
Fashion editorials. Commercials. Live shows.
It has been an interesting couple of decades.
Film + Television
Scales ·
The Good Guys ·
The Glades ·
Germany's Next Top Model ·
Saturday Night Live ·
MTV / Disney Spring Break ·
Nick Jr. / Target
Music + Performance
Lady Gaga ·
Kerli ·
T-Pain ·
Fake Problems ·
Melissa McGhee ·
Larry the Cable Guy
Fashion + Editorial
W Magazine ·
Tim Walker ·
Kristen McMenamy ·
Project Mermaids ·
The MerQueen's Calendar ·
Wyland ·
Pacific Coast News
Brands + Advertising
Walt Disney Studios ·
Skittles ·
Vitaminwater ·
Target ·
NuMe ·
Kate Walsh / Billionaire Boyfriend
Aquariums + Live Mermaids
Weeki Wachee Springs State Park ·
The Silverton Casino ·
Dive Bar Sacramento ·
Downtown Aquarium Denver ·
Ripley's Believe It or Not! Aquarium ·
Sydney Aquarium
Events + Productions
Atlantis Resort ·
Todd Events / The Joule Hotel ·
Belliscious Productions ·
Carly Jane Productions ·
Metropolis Productions ·
Yow Dance ·
Karst Productions ·
Pacific Coast Beach Hotel
Twenty Years Before Everything Was Content
Not Every Tail Came With a Camera Roll.
Some of these projects happened before social media looked
anything like it does today. Some came from a time when
taking a behind-the-scenes photograph wasn't automatically
part of the job. And some photographs are probably sitting
on a hard drive we're still trying to find.
That's what happens when you've been making mermaid tails
this long. What remains is a pretty remarkable record of
where Mertailor tails have traveled.
And Sometimes the Cameras Found Us
From Behind the Tail to In Front of the Camera.
We spent years making mermaid tails for television.
Every once in a while, television came looking for
the guy making them.
TLC
My Crazy Obsession
Eric Ducharme and his life as The Mertailor
became the subject of the television series.
Documentary Television
My Extreme Animal Obsession
An early feature exploring Eric's life,
mermaiding and tailmaking.
Netflix
The Eccentrics
Eric was featured in
Living Like Tarzan / The Merman.
Netflix
MerPeople
Eric, Mertailor and Mertailor tails were
featured throughout Netflix's documentary
series exploring the world of professional
mermaiding.
The Bigger Story
And Then There Are the Thousands of Names You Don't Recognize.
The famous names and unusual productions make for some
pretty great stories. But they represent only a small
part of the tails we've made.
Most Mertailor tails were created for professional
mermaids, performers, swimmers, kids, collectors and
people who simply dreamed about becoming a mermaid.
Some performed in them. Some traveled the world with
them. Some just went swimming.
More than two decades later, that's still what we do.
There's a Reason Our Tails Keep Ending Up on Screen.
For more than 20 years, production companies,
designers, performers, photographers, aquariums
and creative teams have turned to Mertailor when
a project called for something a little outside
the ordinary.
From a single custom tail to a larger production,
if your next project needs a mermaid, merman—or
something we haven't thought of yet—we'd love
to hear about it.
Let's make something memorable.
Tell us a little about your production, project
or creative concept and what you're looking to create.
Materials changed. Designs evolved. The tails got better.
The workshop got busier. But Mertailor is still doing
what started all of this in the first place — making
mermaid tails and seeing where they go next.
