Prabal Gurung Reminds Us to Find Our Center Amid the Chaos

A 10-minute fashion show may come and go, but the designer challenges us to find the meaning in transience.

Over the past decade-plus, Prabal Gurung has built a brand on colorful, meaningful collections that celebrate the beauty of individuality. Many of his most memorable moments have involved eveningwear, making him a favorite among celebrities and other elite clientele. But that’s not all he can do, and his Fall 2023 offering — with its sharp cuts, asymmetric hems and contrasting fits — emphasizes how he can’t and shouldn’t be boxed into any one category.

In the show notes, Gurung wrote about having gone on a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, during which he had a consequential encounter with a butterfly, which triggered a reflection on finding meaning in transience. “We as designers labor for more hours than the months give, only for it to be all over in a 10-minute show,” he said. “How does one find their center in between the fleeting moments of joy and despair?”

That got him thinking about his upbringing in Nepal with his mother — “a mythical place, rich with tradition and spirituality, constantly flowing between silence and patience, yesterday and tomorrow, humanity and the heavens,” he explained. The Fall 2023 collection lives in the tension of this in-between, emphasizing fluidity and evolution. “This is the beauty of impermanence,” he wrote, “that rather than fear it, one must embrace it.”

Fall 2023 puts the focus squarely on daywear, especially on strong, purposeful shapes imbued with a soft feminine sensibility, as seen through easy draping, billowing trains and key embellishments adding a “celestial” element, per the show notes. Gurung also pays homage to that impactful butterfly via an abstract print, seen across a series of dresses and trousers. These clothes may be part of an autumnal collection, but they’re meant to exist outside the constraints of time; they hold their intention, reminding the wearer to take a beat and find that center.

See the full Prabal Gurung Fall 2023 collection below.

Prabal Gurung Fall 2023. Photo: Imaxtree