Posted on March 17, 2009 - by Amanda

Amoretti Designs

One of the things we try to do here at The Complete Woman, is remind our readers that their are choices beyond those offered by TeeVee, the shopping mall, and pop culture. We extol the virtues of such out-of-the-way concepts as letting your hair go gray, reading, and being polite.

One of the many things we strongly oppose in popular culture is the way that very young girls are dressing. Little girls wear hideously suggestive clothing and apparently their mothers are complicit in this since the children cannot drive themselves to the aforesaid mall and pay for these atrocities themselves.

If this problem can be corrected through the existence of beauty, sensibility and cheeriness then Bekah Merkle has the issue all sewn up. This smiling mother of five lives much of the year in Oxford, England where her scholar husband pores over dusty Hebrew manuscripts. In the summer they return home to their native Moscow, Idaho where Bekah’s parents and siblings all reside.

As if trekking halfway around the world twice a year with five youngsters and 14 suitcases wasn’t enough she also designed and has produced a remarkable little garment for rambunctious little ladies called the “Skirty”. This bloomer makes it easy for energetic girls to be all dressed up and still go play on the swing. Since we at The Complete Woman love dressing up but also love doing more than sitting primly and sipping tea all day, this is right up our alley. In addition to the the useful Skirty, Merkle also designs skirts and dresses for it to be worn under and lovely little tees that are both pretty and practical.

We emailed Bekah a few questions about designing and life and she got back to us with entertaining and informative answers.

We know that the Skirty is brilliant (your website told us so) but when were you inspired to create it? What was the catalyst?

You know, it was actually when my oldest daughter (who is now eight) started school. I had no intentions of making a business out of it. It’s just that I was buying her all of her little school uniform skirts and wondering to myself how on earth this was going to work on the playground! She’s a total little monkey, and I knew that she would be hanging upside down off the monkey bars and jumping off the swings . . . and since she attends a school with a uniform it meant that I couldn’t just pop leggings on her underneath. I realize that the usual solution to this problem is to put the girls into navy blue bike shorts . . . but I just can’t get into that. It just seems so un-feminine and un-cute and generally just un-fun! Honestly, I tried with the whole bike short thing. But they fit so badly, were so high waisted, and just all round appalling in many regards. They pilled even – which is pretty much one of my worst ever clothing situations. I do really abhor a garment that pills. I had to do something else. So I made her a Skirty. She started wearing it . . . and pretty soon I had mothers asking me where I had gotten that thing that Jemima was wearing under her skirt. This showed me two very important things. First, everyone sees what your daughter has on under her skirt! Second, everyone else was having this problem and there were no other obvious solutions on the market.

How and when did you start making and designing clothing?

I think it must be hardwired into me somehow! I have very early memories of trying to design and sew things – I think my earliest memory was a pair of gloves. Needless to say, they did not turn out – but I learned a very important lesson that day about seam allowances! I had just traced around my hand, cut it out, and then sewed it up . . . and then couldn’t figure out why it turned out the size of a cranberry. I felt quite pompously pleased with myself when I realized I should add a seam allowance. I think I felt that this was quite a clever little trick that most people hadn’t figured out. I have no idea how old I was at the time . . . but my mother was already letting me use her sewing machine without her supervision – so it might have been around second grade maybe. My mother was fantastic. She used to save the labels from bias tape and ric rac . . . if you sent in enough labels to the manufacturer they would mail you a whole bag of miscellaneous ends of ribbons and trims. She would just let me use it for doll clothes or whatever crazy creations I decided to come up with. She always bought me fabric when I wanted to do a project – and even told me, “Great job!” when I completely botched up a perfectly good piece of cloth because I insisted on trying to do it without a pattern! She’s an excellent seamstress herself, and she taught me all about it. But then she just let me run with it . . . and ripped out seams for me when I had totally made a mess!

OK – on this one I have to tell you what my husband said in answer to that question! He insisted that my style inspiration is Coco Chanel and the Spanish dancer in the old Zorro TV series. Sadly, I have to admit that I found it a bit hard to argue with him on this point! I would love to take a very high tone and deny it completely, but the truth is that I have long had quite a thing for that Gypsy / Senorita look. Back in the good old days of glove sewing I was quite taken with that particular style and I’m afraid that I may never have gotten totally over it. And, unfortunately proving my husband’s point, one of the skirts in my Spring collection is called the “Gypsy Queen Skirt.” So he basically rests his case! And it’s a bit cliche and overdone and unoriginal to say Coco Chanel isn’t it? But I have to admit that he’s right on that one too. Oh well.

There seems to be so much color in your world; isn’t England supposed to be gray?
As I look out my window right now, (what I can see past the condensation) the world is almost entirely gray! (Or “grey” as the case may be.) But Spring here is unbelievably gorgeous . . . and the color and intensity strike you all the more after going through the gray dreary winter when it’s still pitch black at 7:30 and getting dark again by 3:45! The High Street in Oxford is completely stone. Beautiful architecture of course, but stone everything. Stone street, stone pavement, stone buildings. And there’s one lone cherry tree in front of the University Church, where Cranmer was tried for heresy and CS Lewis preached his “Weight of Glory” sermon. It’s an enormous cherry tree, and it bursts into bloom in the Spring in the most incredible, vivid pink. Somehow the contrast just makes it all the more amazing and you can see it all the way up and down the road. I think the color here – when it comes – is unbelievable.

Whenever the caffeine is flowing! Actually, I don’t quite know when I do it. I sort of fit it in here and there . . . there are a good many late evenings, but there’s never been a Saturday at a coffee house! I basically get a bit done here and there between loads of laundry and piles of dishes . . . and then when there’s a due date it kind of pushes to the front and other things fall off the plate! (Notably laundry.) I keep hoping that one of these days I’ll have a bit more of a system!

Hmmm. Probably the fact that I feel like Oxford is definitely the Bright Lights, Big City! I do realize that most people in the world would think that’s awfully funny. Also the fact that I feel that living without a pickup truck is just as much of a hardship as living without a dryer and a dishwasher! And, self sacrificing martyr that I am, I’ve had to live without all three while in England. (Although, in the interests of honesty, I should state that I do now have a tiny dishwasher and a tiny dryer. Three rousing cheers!)

I have to admit to being a diehard Wodehouse nut. I can really just get into a PG Wodehouse – pretty much any of them. My favorites would probably be /Leave it to Psmith/ and /The Code of the Woosters/ . . . but I can’t help feeling that I’m leaving a whole lot out if I limit it to those two! And CS Lewis of course – you can’t beat CS Lewis. And of course any books by my father, mother, and brother . . . and my husband is currently working on a book for Thomas Nelson called /The White Horse King/ which naturally will be my favorite book of all time after I’ve read it!

Bekah Merkle’s Clothing Site HERE

And her fun blog HERE