Reality Check

Bravo's new fashion reality show "Launch My Line" partners successful professionals with established fashion designers to do as the title says and create a fashion line. Marilyn Crawford, who lives in Las Vegas, stars as one of the professionals.

She works as a CEO of global strategic marketing company Windsor PTM and chairman for 2810, a private business membership club. Not exactly positions that spur runway images, but the businesswoman's fashion aspirations date back to her days as a toddler.

When she was 3 years old, a woman who lived down the street from her made clothes that Crawford designed with the help of her father. (Take that, Suri Cruise.) It cost less than store-bought clothes and revved the creative juices much better than a coloring book could. When Crawford designed a matching rabbit fur muffin, earmuffs and cape, the fashion bug bit her hard.

"From that moment on, I was hooked," she says.

With older brothers and sisters who traveled the world as working professionals and returned with wearable souvenirs, Crawford became accustomed to donning the most innovative, fashion-forward garments in school. Her exposure to clothes you couldn't find on racks at the mall instilled in her a taste for the extraordinary that followed her into adulthood.

During an Alvin Ailey dance performance, the CEO recalls impressing one of the most impressive names in the fashion industry. She wore her little black dress backward that night so her back, not her cleavage, took a plunge. Her black pumps alone didn't quite complete the look, so Crawford took another risk. She wrapped a pony tail holder with an oversized flower attached to it around her right ankle.

When Andre Leon Talley -- who Crawford only knew as Vogue's editor-at-large at the time but now calls a friend -- spotted her in the crowd, he had to say something: "Girl, you are fabulous!"

Crawford figures if she could catch a fashion guru's eye, she shouldn't have a hard time launching a fashion line. She envisions a collection for the "average-sized woman," which Crawford describes as a 12-14. She says her line would be a cross between Miranda and Samantha from "Sex and the City" and, like those two characters, make a loud statement.

Will her competition on the show turn out a line that outshines her own? "I have no competition," she says.

As for her own personal style, Crawford likes Luca Luca, Diane von Furstenberg, Carolina Herrera and Roberto Cavalli, but isn't afraid to throw Target and H&M into the mix.

"I take all of those and I do Marilyn," she says. "When women wear (all of one designer) they're letting the designer speak for them."

"Launch My Line" premieres Wednesday at 11 p.m. on Bravo.