My Styling and Designing

My Styling and Designing

It is foolishness to judge a book by its cover, but it is also foolishness to put a math textbook cover on an epic novel.

Your personal image is how you advertise to the world on the outside what you would like them to know about the inside.

I’ve always been fascinated with the psychology behind style- how it shapes how others view us and affects how we, ourselves, act wearing different clothes. I am well aware that building a strong personal image through clothing can help create other’s perceptions of us, but I also love playing with the stereotypes of each aesthetic I dip my toes into. Whether it’s wearing a full studded leather outfit while listening to 40s Jazz driving to my college philosophy class, or donning a frilly sundress while blaring Five Finger Death Punch in my muddied truck, I enjoy toying with people’s expectations through the juxtaposition of the way I dress and conduct myself.

From costume design to concert outfits to holiday looks and everything in between, I love creating and curating clothes in a way that showcases my personality.

A replica costume I designed and made with a bunch of random materials from Walmart and a truck-ton of staples for a Halloween dance with the theme: A Famous Country Artist

A DIY Valentine’s Day outfit I styled and partially handmade in the back of my truck in the parking lot of the event I had to wear it to

The earrings I wore with it were also self-designed and hand-made!

Designed and sewed my own swing dancing dress that was convertible into a coverall dress or separate simple skirt.

Hand-Painted Clothing Pieces

Mine

His

A near-exact replica of Johnny Cash’s railway patch jacket he wore for a photoshoot with June Carter and was featured wearing on the cover of Country Music Magazine.

I painstakingly zoomed in on every single visible patch in the original photos, researched each patch individually by the colors and fuzzy I letters I could manage to make out, matched each one to a sharper image of the patch, and then hand-painted each one onto the jacket trying to stay as true to the real thing as possible. I managed to find a handful of the vintage patches on Ebay, but the rest are all painted on.

On the back, I painted a wanted poster I designed myself by using reference photos of black-and-white pictures of Johnny, old wild west posters, and put easter eggs to some of my favorite songs of his in the writing on the poster (“Folsom Prison Blues” and “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town”)

I wanted to add flare to this leather vest I got from Goodwill and decided I wanted to create my own biker logo for the back. I drew upon many popular “edgy” pieces like flames, playing cards, and travel themes such as the route sign. The added easter egg is that the “sun” setting on the horizon is actually a Sun Records record to nod to the Man in Black cover art silhouette of Johnny in the fore front.

Another Johnny Cash inspired work- this time, as a leather, biker vest.

One of my favorite projects I’ve made to date: a custom Welcome to the Plains Tour pearlsnap I made for the Wyatt Flores concert.

What started out as a plain, black shirt, ended up a whimsical western fringe statement piece. I directly drew upon the huge art piece Chloe Tyler (Chloe Tyler (@chloetylerrr) • Instagram photos and videos ) made for Wyatt’s new album and tour (pictured to the right) as well as some promotional posters for it to pull out distinct elements to copy onto the shirt by hand. I then hand-sewed on the fire-red fringe. See the video for the front of the shirt (which includes the title of the tour, the neon mountains and clouds from the background of the painting, and Wyatt’s signature “WF” on the collar) as well as a more detailed look at the back.

I would love to use my eye for fashion as well as my creative skills to make one-of-a-kind wearable art for artists and musicians around the world.

Custom painted cowboy hat with nods to Johnny Cash, Colter Wall, and Kenny Rogers. Can you spot all of them?

Bonus points for the burnt playing cards and authentic shotgun shell ends.

100% handmade chaps, rodeo vests, cowgirl hats, and shotgun shell earrings for my high school’s costume dance. We were prompted by Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” to dress up as rhinestone cowgirls.

Valentine’s Day outfit I made for school.

I cut out dozens of hearts all over the jeans with fabric scissors, outlined each heart with fabric glue so they wouldn’t fray, and then painted pink and red outlines around each one. Then for the shirt, I sewed each piece of the heart together and added the ruffly trim.

Styling an outfit for a concert based on the album cover:

I completely matched my look to Wyatt Flores’ Half Life album cover with things I already had in my closet for his concert I went to in 2024. It was complete with a fringe layered dress, a thrifted vintage wood bead belt, my hand-painted leather vest, a floral wild rag, and hand-picked wildflowers stuck in my hat band.

Below are just a few examples of outfits I have styled and/or handmade (many taken from a fashion social media account I ran during community college):

An outfit I styled inspired by the biker bar named “Bullet-hole Saloon” in my hometown where I used to line dance with a weekly group (made up entirely of retired 60+ year old women).

The back of the vest is self-designed and hand painted. Was very proud of how it turned out.

One of several Valentine’s Day themed outfits I wore for the week of. The “capelette” is a Grace-original. I hand sewed it the night before. The earrings are also handmade out of shrink-film, permanent marker, and clear top coat.

This was such a simple outfit for class, but sometimes the simplest are the classiest, and I loved the way it made me feel.

A red, white, and blue theme outfit I styled for Veteran’s day.

(Thank you to all who have served!)

A fun Western look for class and then line dancing afterwards.

Switching from my work clothes after a shift of mulching leaves for the city into school clothes. I was (and still am) obsessed with this song by Sierra Ferrell and something about it made me think to put this outfit together.