Momma's Lullaby

Hey everyone. I just got finished recording my newly written song Momma's Lullaby, for those of you who have been following me on my Instagram. It's very rough, my little sister recorded it, but its just the beginning.

So without further adieu, here it is!! (:

Sincerely,

Grant Mower

P.S. I will have a blog post next week on my first ever fashion clients. (: Also, If you want see me play this on the guitar, just comment.

Mermaid Motel inspired sketch

This is the sketch that was inspired by Mermaid Motel. I have never, in my experience seen anything like it. My Brother's art (he's a sequential artist) was a keystone in my inspiration. See, my brother has this little connection to cephalopods or squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish. And I have to say, at first glance you don't exactly see the beauty in it, but I adjusted to it. So here is a mood board of some inspirations:

The first inspiration I really had was the cuttlefish. They are so interesting and have multiple spontaneous color changes. My brother showed them to me, and he believes that they are one of the most beautiful animals he has ever seen I couldn't agree more. So then the issue was trying to figure out how to turn an animal so abstract, into a wearable, couture design.

So I did some thinking and the mouths of the cuttlefish in an odd way, reminded me of 1920's flapper dresses. I happened to some very intricate ones this past summer at the Texas Fashion Collection and one of them had very intricate beading on it. For a long time I had wondered what the beading was and I later found out it was tambour beading, a couture french beading. It's shown in the making out the Chanel couture outfit, and the process is so remarkable to me. They literally pull the fabric tight enough that they can hand sew the beads, and that looks like it takes forever.

So I simply put all those inspirations together to make this one dress. Now to explain the dress. It is a red silk lame with red chiffon trim or accent fabric. The lame makes the body of a flapper, and the chiffon makes the long sleeves and bottom part of the trim. The bottom is cut like octopus tentacles but is shaped unevenly to give it more of a high fashion look. The final touch I added to it was the tambour beading. There are circles of tambour beading in different colors of  yellow, blue, orange, green, and violet. The inspiration of this is the print of the cuttlefish and the suction cups on cephalopod tentacles. 

Viola! That is my design for mermaid motel be back soon with more.

Sincerely,

Grant Mower

Look at this fantasy cover for a song I wrote recently. If your lucky I might sing it for you on this blog!(:

Mermaid Motel

This past spring break I took the most AMAZING vacation to Destin. It has literally taken an affect on how I look at the world just by sitting by a beach all day. It was so peaceful! The rhythm of the waves hitting the shore, the feeling of the cold sand on your toes and the cold water around your legs, It literally felt like heaven on the Emerald Coast. Mt entire family came and we stayed in a nice little private community cottage. There was a slew of great places to shop, eat, and just have fun! It is now my second favorite city besides my home Dallas.

Anyway, back onto the matter of fashion. Because of Destin, I have pretty much rediscovered the beauty of colors. Blue, Green, Red, Yellow have all seemed to come back into my palette of colors to design with. A lot of the time I was there I was seeking inspiration through the waves, mermaids, cephalopods, and Lana del rey music here is all of it in a nutshell.

So I made some sketches, and I realized the colors reminded me of the master Jean Paul Gaultier. Then I remembered recently I went to The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From Sidewalk to Catwalk, and I absolutely adored it! The first room has more of the nautical sense I'd like to display here:

So I guess I can say this past spring break was the most amazing one of my life. By the way, my only issues with these designs again are that they are very immodest, not to dis the master, because I love Jean Paul! I love all the extravagant details too! So I will have some of my very own ocean inspired sketches to show soon too! Let me know your thoughts on what you would like to see in my designs.

Sincerely,
Grant Mower

P.S. I will have the sketches for this post and the ones for the rest of my collections soon.(:

New Sketches

So I kind of lied..... I know I should show you all the sketches at once but I feel like that would spoil it. So I decided I would save some for later and show you one full sketch now, my sketchbook, and I collage of designs so you can all still get the basic idea of my sketches.

Lanvin Sketchbook given to me a couple years ago by Abby Gregory for my birthday, Thanks Abby!!(:

This design is a tailored Grant R. Mower original ensemble. An ivory silk satin-faced organza dress shirt with sewn rolled up sleeves with two shirt pocked with visible stitching. The black skirt has a top that is 2-play silk jersey pencil that hugs the hips ,and the second part is my signature hand-sewn ruching cut in a circle skirt near the bottom so it doesn't give the illusion of huge thighs.

This is just a collage of some, but not all of the pieces in my collection. I give it away by explaining too much, but if you look at the cardigan you can vaguely see the ghost fairy print.

Hopefully you enjoyed some of my previewed rough draft sketches and you see my artistic expression in it.

Sincerely,

Grant Mower

P.S. Pretty soon you will get a look at the Destin vacation I just took and the fashion connection there. Plus, More sketches to come.

Light vs. Dark (Inspiration, pt.III)

Hey, Everyone! This is my final inspiration blog entry and here is what I would like to show to everyone.

Her name is Oh land and she is my other favorite artist aside from Skylar Grey, and I have an appetite of fashion inspiration for her electro-pop music for one big reason. She has this understanding of light vs. dark that is so vivid. You can hear it in all of her music, and see it in all of her videos. From the photos you can see one is totally dark confinement with metallic electronic feelings, and the other is so enlightened with moods of rainbows and lightheartedness. In comparison of her music videos, Sun of a gun pulls off a darker theme most of the time, but has mood and theme changes occurring during the chorus lines and bridge of the lyric. Whereas, Rainbow"s feelings has a lighter theme, but hints of dark feelings, hence the simplicity of the track. My favorite video though is her VEVO stylized, where she explains her style. I agree with her style points as she says, style to her is not looking exactly one way, but expressing your feelings and your mood. That's what I try to portray in my blog and in my fashion design, which is why light vs. dark is part of my collection, because I would like to portray emotions that I have felt in my life and set them in the story of a designer collection.

Sincerely,

Grant Mower

P.S. The next post I will have up is the a blip of my sketches. Scanner was glitching so I couldn't show anything yet. (:

Ghost print? (Inspiration pt.II)

Hey everybody, look at this digital print I made! (Be warned it is only a rough draft!!)

I call the creatures ghost fairies. I kind of look at them the same way as I do for my collection's inspiration. See it's kind of like this. The ghosts may be dark and mourning symbols, but that is only part of what they are really about. See, they are also part fairy, making them symbols of optimism and happiness hence there smiling faces! Hope you guys enjoyed the print and I will have full sketches soon!

Sincerely,

Grant Mower

P.S. Give me your feedback! What kind of clothing item would you like to see this print on? i.e., blouse, dress, jacket, skirt, jeans, gown?

Inspiration

So on this blog post, I am going to put together all my inspirations for (hopefully:) ) my debut collection!

Themes: I think a theme I just described on the last post is one of society's revolution. Not as in bad revolution, but changes for the good in a more artistic way. So giving more modesty as apposed to today's sexual society. Also giving more of enlightenment of what we have turned to in our days of modernism, like that of which is in one of my favorite songs, "Zombie" by The Cranberries.

 I think one of my main inspirations are the songs of my favorite style icon, song-writer, and singer, SKYLAR GREY (the genius behind love the way you lie) ! She has this sense of style that's so her own and does not rely on what others are doing, for her music or her clothing. She is not defined by any genre whatsoever and really does write music about what's important to her and others. And Recently I even spent Seventy dollars on an in-person signed autograph from eBay. My sister says I'm obsessed, I say I'm inspired!!

Fabrics and Colors: When most people would think of the word original, they might think Jean-Paul Gaultier or Elsa Schiaparelli. But what about original set back tones, like black and whites and simple or draped shapes? That king of originality is what I would like to convey with my the collection. So there's a lot of blacks, whites, cremes, grey/silvers, and other monochromatic toned themes. With fabrics, I'd like to have more of a shiny and textured theme, that can add a little to the simplicity that those kinds of colors. I would choose lame, organza, chiengora (luxury dog hair, [not fur!]), and plisses (acid-dipped, crinkled fabrics) to give a sort of interesting message or emotion (like the shine of lame is like enlightenment to a new fashion revolution or with the crispness of organza like the firm change the revolution could make.) .

So to put it all in a nut-shell, that's my inspiration, a mix of revolution, Skylar Grey, and luxury dog hairs like wool. I will put up some preview sketches soon.(:

Sincerely,

Grant Mower

The Music Man, Pt. II

The mix of inspiration between fashion and music.

I am an aspiring fashion designer, true, but as a pastime I also write music, play piano, and sing. I think the funny thing about the mix of both of these topics is that society has come to points where fashion/music become less and less artistic. I mean how often do you go into a department store and say, "Wow, I saw this same exact when I was shopping, Last Season!" or when you go onto style.com and look at a show review and see that half of the collection is just shear uninspired nudity because a designer is too focused on sales to look at what fashion is really about (at least to me), Creativity. And in music, how many times has this happened to you: You are driving down the street and turn on the radio, what you here is a bunch of electronic pop music and you hear words such as drunk, loving, sexy, and other meaningless words, mainly being sexual.

So my point with all of this is: We need to bring back what art used to be. I love studying my fashion history. I think I do this because I find a different fashion world back then. I love going in to Vintage Martini, a local vintage boutique, and looking back at the times when fashion was so much more separated between what was commercial and couture. Look at times now. Can you review one high fashion designer's collection without finding some blip of exposed chest? exactly. That is why I am such a big fan of (the late) Schiaparelli. She seems to have some kind of signature for her brand, but does not dwell on that for the inspiration for every collection she does.

So dare to take a fashion risk when designing or styling. Don't be told what to wear by society's current sexual and commercial themes.


Sincerely,
        Grant Mower

P.S. The same goes for the music. And this is just my opinion, feel free to voice your own. (:

The Music Man, Pt. I

Shoes And Necklace: Guess, Watch: Apt.9

Shot on my Keyboard.

So this week I think I am going to cover my inspiration in fashion towards music. You can expect a Full styled outfit in Pt. II and in Pt. III, a fashion design sketch and inspiration photo. If I decide to show a Pt.IV, you can expect a video of me performing in my school's talent show.

              Sincerely,
                        Grant Mower