by Chandra Clewley

Susan Brunet, expert designer on Bravo’s Launch My Line was the first to go last night. Susan moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles in 2004 after graduating from design school. Her first stint, as a swimwear designer, didn’t last too long. Currently, she is re-launching her contemporary women’s clothing line Elevate & Collide, after a hiatus in late 2009. Susan spoke with me for a few minutes today about the premiere episode.

Q. Chandra, Reality Wanted: How were the professionals and the experts paired together? 

A. Susan: As far as I knew it was random. Ultimately, they wanted to make sure that we wanted to work with each other, so it was “I want someone who is positive” or what not.  We had never talked to those people and then it was like bam! We were right in front of them, and it was kind of awkward. You were meeting them for the first time. 

Q. Chandra, Reality Wanted: Dan’s signature piece idea was for a jacket. According to the DSquared2 guys, that was the hardest thing to create. Did you know that that was going to be so difficult to create? 

A. Susan: Yeah, even when Dan said, in the very beginning, that he wanted to do a jacket because he wears jackets all of the time, I was just thinking to myself “Do you even know how hard this is?”  I told him that that was going to be really difficult but if that’s what he wanted, that’s what I am here for.

Q. Chandra, Reality Wanted: There is $50,000 in it for the experts if they win the show, but at the same time, you don’t want to take away from the professional’s vision. Did you find it challenging how much advice you could even give to Dan?

A. Susan: You know, I really wanted to give him a lot of advice but at the same time, I did not have the time to tell him, or try to convince him. He had time to think about what he wanted to do before the show started, so he had really decided that the idea and concept of a Broadway-esque type of clothing that you could wear on the street, as well as it would have to be kind of sporty, because he is kind of sporty, the idea could be developed into something really wonderful but when you are a jacket up against dresses it makes you go “uh oh”. 

Q. Chandra, Reality Wanted: Would you say the jacket idea was just too ambitious?

A. Susan: Yeah, for the first challenge show it might have been too ambitious.

Q. Chandra, Reality Wanted: Was there one or two experts or professionals that you thought were stronger and are going to take the lead?

A. Susan: Just from seeing the first garments and seeing how everyone worked, I really felt like Jim was super talented, and I think he is going to do really well. And then obviously Thai, who can sew a million garments in one day, he can sew so much stuff in one day! 

(Jim is the expert paired with Louanna Rawls. Thai is the expert paired with Merle Ginsberg . Both of their pieces were in the top 3 this episode with Jim and Louanna’s winning first place.)

You can catch an all new episode of Launch Of My Line next Wednesday at 11 p.m. on Bravo.

(image courtesy of Bravo)