PRABAL GURUNG

Prabal Gurung was thinking deep this season. He installed a mirrored square runway reflecting an opulent blue light display at the main branch of the New York Public Library for a fashion week show Friday exploring the Buddhist concept of "anichya," or impermanence. In short, Gurung explained, New York Fashion Week for him was a “magical, mystery journey. There was an oversized sweater in an ivory and yellow butterfly knit and a pink and scarlet embroidered cocoon coat. Kelsea Ballerini, who stunned in a yellow gown by Gurung at the Grammys, was among his front row guests.

Prabal Gurung installed a mirrored square runway reflecting an opulent blue light display at the main branch of the New York Public Library for a fashion week show Friday.

So it's lit up," fashion designer Prabal Gurung said of celebrations in Nepal, where Diwali is better known as Tihar. Gurung was one of the hosts of Diwali New York, a glitzy soiree held Saturday at The Pierre, fittingly a Taj Hotel. Handwritten blue signs advertised Diwali specials for everything from 40-pound bags of rice to ghee, tea and pitted dates. Carrying a basket brimming with tea lights and other decorations, the Delhi native said her Diwali celebrations in the United States are usually intimate family affairs because most people prefer to pray in their own homes. Suneera Madhani, the Pakistani American founder of Stax, attended the Diwali party at The Pierre as a gesture of South Asian solidarity.

The week dawned gloomily in New York.

He turned it into a white runway that made his revealing metallics, bondage looks and neon brights pop. In a white corseted jumpsuit and a barely there mint blouse worn with a black leather lambskin mini skirt by Ella Emhoff, the stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris. He called his misfits “my families, my tribes, my friends” whose rights are often taken advantage of. As a creative person, Gurung said, the pandemic has reaffirmed his need to tell stories rather than simply send clothes down a runway. There was a tulle gown in soft pink and black, and another in soft blue and black.

Designer Prabal Gurung put a spotlight Saturday on who he called the misfits of the world.

Prabal Gurung sent his New York Fashion Week models down a long, stark runway Saturday in the shadow of the United Nations wearing an explosion of sheers and colors as an ode to the misfits of the world who are “often watched and monitored, scrutinized but unseen.” “I needed to be near the reminder of the U.N. that our job in fashion is not done until we are alert and vigilant.” Over the last year, Gurung said, he found his hope and optimism fading as the “status quo, the patriarchy," seemed ever more unnerved over those who resist “regressive values.”

Fashion Prabal Gurung Fashion from Prabal Gurung is modeled during Fashion Week, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) (Bebeto Matthews)NEW YORK — (AP) — Prabal Gurung blended his love for his adopted city of New York and his homeland of Nepal in a Fashion Week show featuring psychedelic flower prints imbued with a New York edginess. “It’s a New York love song to Nepal,” Gurung said in an interview before the show. But for Gurung the strappy looks held a more sentimental attachment, the cutouts a play on the traditional blouses worn by Nepali women. In Nepal, Gurung, said the fuchsia flowers blanket the mountains, offering an almost intoxicating experience when hiking.

Prabal Gurung’s latest collection was a love letter from his adopted hometown of New York to his homeland of Nepal.

NYFW Spring/Summer 2022 - Prabal Gurung - Front Row Model Amelia Hamlin attends the Prabal Gurung spring/summer 2022 fashion show at 20 Battery Place during New York Fashion Week on Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021. American Girl dolls. Prabal Gurung celebrated all things woman Wednesday night on the runway and off at his New York Fashion Week show along the downtown waterfront. New York is also a woman, Gurung said, as is new Gov. And he did it in collaboration with Mattel's American Girl, one of his show sponsors.

New York’s first female governor.

FILE - The Christian Siriano collection is modeled during Fashion Week in New York on Feb. 6, 2020. With no celebs in the front row, no paparazzi chasing models down the streets, no stiletto-heeled crowds and no live shows at all, is there even a point to doing Fashion Week in 2020? Is there even a point to doing New York Fashion Week in 2020? “Ultimately fashion is a business, and Fashion Week is a platform for designers to do business,” says Steven Kolb, chief executive of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which organizes the semi-annual event. But this is really, really seismic.