For fall, Prabal Gurung titled his collection Home Sweet Home? The question mark wasn’t an accident—it’s a purposeful interrogation. The designer insisted that the notion of “sweet home” didn’t need to be relegated to pure nostalgia. “It’s more about, ‘Where did I learn my endurance and resilience?’” he explained. The answer, naturally, can be found where he was raised: Nepal, “a place where the Hinduism, the temples, the monasteries, the monks, the shamans, and everyone coexisted.”
Throughout our conversation, it was clear that Gurung had a firm grasp of the motifs he wished to borrow from his upbringing. His inquisition instead came from how to translate those materials in his classic eveningwear context. Tight lace caps that covered the eyes—some with fringed beads and some without—came from his shaman, and draped silhouettes represented a polished take on women’s chiffon saris, specifically the act of hiking them up to dance.
Taken from the nuns who taught Gurung at a British Catholic boarding school was more lace that trimmed the sleeves of the opening two blazers: part re-creations of his old uniform and part homage to the textiles that the nuns would embroider. Then the fabric formed a cocooned drop-waist gown with a sloping open back. Elsewhere, quilted duvet coats mimicked their habits.
The question mark also explored what comes next. Uneasiness surrounding tariffs and immigrant relations now permeates Gurung’s daily business conversations; it’s a shift he hasn’t ever felt in his 15 years in business. That’s perhaps why he homed in on an underlying idea of resilience—the resilience that it took to come to America and build a brand. For Gurung, melding his two worlds continues to bring hope. “And that’s all we have right now,” he said. “Hope.”