Fish Tails

Artist and entrepreneur Eric Ducharme was disappointed to see how he was depicted in TV channel TLC's show, “My Crazy Obsession.” The segment focused only on his interest in mermaids and primarily showed him swimming underwater in his mermaid tail.

The show, which aired in April, didn't mention the painstaking care he puts into creating elegant, colorful mermaid tails for customers around the world.

Still, as the saying goes, it seems bad publicity is better than no publicity.

Interest in the Mertailor's tails, for females and males, spiked following the airing of the show in April.

“It's just amazing how many people are buying my mermaid tails,” says Ducharme, who incorporated his business, Mertailors LLC, four years ago.

Ducharme, 23, has been fascinated with the “mer world” since his grandparents took him as a young boy to see the mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs, a Florida roadside tourist attraction in Hernando County.

Mertailor sells about 50 mermaid tails each month. The custom-made silicone tails, which range in price from $100 to as much as $5,000, are shipped around the world.

They've been worn by the rich and famous and regular people — all who are enchanted by the mythical creatures and underwater world.

Lady Gaga wore gold and black tails in a performance of “Edge of Glory” in France two years ago, Ducharme says. RuPaul's Drag Race contestants wore the tails for a TV segment called “Time for Something Fishy.”

Ducharme's tails adorn the mermaids in Weeki Wachee Spring's calendar.

Flo Rida, a popular South Florida rapper, recently made a video to go with the hit “Can't Believe It.” Two models in the video wear black tails made by the Mertailor.

Ducharme was taken aback when he realized Flo Rida's video focuses on women with big butts.

“It's really horrible my art work got used in such a way,” he says. “It's extremely offensive.”

Sales of Mertailor tails have doubled each of the past few years, he says. Sales were $250,000 in 2012.

Want-to-be mer people, mostly adults, order the tails through themertailor.com website. Each tail is made specifically for a person, using that person's measurements.

It takes Ducharme about five to 10 weeks to make a tail, depending on the sophistication involved. He makes each tail by hand, and then ships them to customers around the world.

Other than TV shows and news blurbs, most people learn of his business through word-of-mouth. He has 22,300 likes on Facebook.

Ducharme, however, is working on turning Mertailor into a better known brand and expanding the product line to add less costly products.

“We're in the middle of developing products that can be mass produced but are still one of a kind,” he says.

He's developing mermaid flippers, called mono fins, for recreational pool use.

They will be made by Ducharme and his employees at his Homosassa house that doubles as a studio.

In addition to Ducharme, Mertailor now employs two others, his mother, Candy, and his boyfriend.

The Mertailor hopes to eventually have brick-and-mortar retail sales.

“I'd love to have storefronts around the U.S.,” he says.

Recently, he has faced increased competition, with as many as two dozen other companies making and selling mermaid tails.

But he contends the other tails aren't as intricate or detailed as his products. He has been making them and perfecting the craft for at least 10 years.

Other tails made by competitors that don't include built-in fins can be dangerous, he says, adding that it's tough to learn to swim in a tail even with built-in flippers.

“I've spent my entire life trying to create a sellable, perfect product,” Ducharme says. “I'm constantly investing my time and money to make the product perfect.”