One of my favorite designers is definitely Prabal Gurung, who is a brilliant, young designer born in Singapore and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal. It was in New Delhi, India
that his design career truly began. While studying at New Delhi's
National Institute of Fashion Technology, he apprenticed at several
local production and fashion houses and designed with Manish Arora.
Gurung's travels took him to Melbourne and London, where he assisted
stylists for various fashion shows and international publications. In
1999, after seven years of traveling, Gurung moved to New York City. He
began his career in New York interning for Donna Karan while attending
Parsons School of Design. In his first year, he was awarded the "Best
Designer" title at the annual Parsons / FIT design competition.
After Parsons, Gurung spent two years with Cynthia Rowley's design
team, which allowed him to gain even more invaluable experience on both
the design and business end of New York's highly competitive fashion
scene. Soon after, he became the design director at Bill Blass. After
five successful years, Gurung left his post at Blass to launch his own
collection, PRABAL GURUNG.
Since the launch of his collection, Gurung has dressed
leading ladies including Michelle Obama, Demi Moore, Zoe Saldana and
Oprah Winfrey, to name a few. In 2010 he was the recipient of the Ecco
Domani Fashion Fund Award and received a nomination for the 2010 CFDA
Swarovski Womenswear Award. He was chosen by the fashion industry's
leading editors, retailers, designers and business experts for one of
the highly coveted design studios at the {CFDA Fashion Incubator} for
2010-2012. In November 2010, Gurung was selected as runner-up for the
2010 CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund. In 2011 Gurung was honored as one of USA
Network's twelve Character Approved Award recipients.
Gurung presently resides in New York City.
