Totally Blown was founded by owner Cody Montgomery back in 2012. At the time Cody was living in rural Iowa in tiny off the grid cabin called the Danger Shack. While there, a mouse got into his clothing and chewed all these tiny little holes in his shirt. To his surprise, the distressed organic pattern on the shirt caught his eye and it became his favorite shirt. Cody decided to try and make another using scissors, but the holes came out more like slashes and the pattern looked contrived. One day it clicked, quite literally, and Cody found himself out back behind the Danger Shack with his brothers old single shot shotgun blasting holes in his clothes and randomness of the shot mixed with complexity of textures was exactly what he was looking for. shortly after he came up with the name Totally Blown and knew he had something. Knowing off grid rural Iowa wasn't exactly a fashion launch pad, Cody wondered back out west where he has lived and studied fashion years prior in Southern California. It was then that he first visited the legendary high desert of Joshua Tree and knew he had found his place. Within weeks, he relocated to Joshua Tree, bought a shotgun and started blasting clothing in the desert as Totally Blown.
The brand took off fast, quickly catching the attention of Urban Outfitters and other large retailers who wanted in on this original and wild fashion esthetic. It was then that Cody innovated his approach to scaling up production to thousands of pieces while at the same time holding onto that radical chaos, organic texture, and one of a kind appeal that keeps people coming back to Totally Blown again and again for its unique look and original artistic process.
Over the years Totally Blown has gone international, selling in Europe, Japan, Australia and beyond and collaborating with some of the top designers from Amiri, Selfridges, Levi's, Jungmaven, Everytown, and more.
In addition, what started out as a fascination with organic wild textures and chaos has matured into a brand deeply embedded in the understanding guns, their uses, and how to stop the violence. Over the years, Totally Blown has continued to not only speak out against gun violence, but also has raised thousands and thousands of dollars to donate to organizations that now exist like Everytown, Moms Demand, and Gays Against Guns. You may think, well shooting clothing is a weird way of ending violence, and that's true, but the strength of the approach lies in the middle path, creating a paradox as a way of getting people to really consider what guns are used for, who is committing the violence, and how they can join the conversation and take action by wearing radical clothing that so often turns heads starts real conversations on the topic. We like to think about Totally Blown as a hybrid between fashion, art, activism, and chaos...clothing as wild, beautiful, unique, and brutal as the world we live in.
Thanks for learning more about Totally Blown!!
If you're a magazine, blog, or podcast we love telling our story and readers and listeners love hearing about it too...please reach out to us at blowntotally@gmail.com or 1-310-694-4082 or @totally__blown