Texas Boy, 12, Designs Dress for Michelle Obama
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}First lady Michelle Obama, widely recognized for her style sense, may wear a dress that was created by a 12-year-old Texas boy at an upcoming fundraiser in Utah.
Sixth-grader Grant Mower plans to travel to Utah for a chance to have Michelle Obama test out the dress he designed for her, reportedly after he was inspired by a blooming orchid he admired during a visit to Washington, D.C.
Mower already has won a statewide competition that included high school and college students, and he's come a long way in his short time as an amateur designer.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"First, I was just drawing little girls' stuff,” he told WFIE.com. “Then I came up to where I am now, watching Chanel shows and you know, sort of a growth in fashion and maturity.”
But apparently, while he matured, some classmates did not. After episodes of bullying at school because of his interest in women’s fashion, he was eventually homeschooled earlier this year. But he returned to the class three weeks later because he missed his friends, the Dallas Magazine reported.
Considering the bullying, perhaps Michelle Obama makes for his perfect muse.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In March, the first lady spoke at the first bullying prevention conference at the White House, where she said the conference’s goal was to “dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. It’s not.”
Still, Grant's reputation is growing rapidly within Texas as person full of potential.
Dallas Magazine featured a profile on Mower that describes a precocious boy who admired Swarovski crystals as a child and by the ripe age of seven, began sketching dress designs.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“He’s very brilliant and has a wonderful sense of color,” said Michael Faircloth, a designer who is helping Mower actually sew and design the dress “fit for a first lady.”
Faircloth and his three-person team work with Mower three days a week for about three hours a day on the silk dress that will be presented to Obama “sometime before the school-year starts.”
“I’m helping Grant through the entire design process,” Faircloth, who designed a dress for former first lady Laura Bush, said. “We’re making certain that it is designed perfectly in the couture process.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He said the boy designed the dress on paper but could not sew the dress without the help of an established studio.
"It's just such a huge task," he said. "And it's for the first lady."