Singapore-born fashion designer Prabal Gurung shares his amazing life story in new memoir

Fashion designer Prabal Gurung has always been a storyteller. First, it was through the colourful, Nepal-inspired designs that helped him find early success in the cutthroat fashion world. Now, he is sharing his life story in words with his bold new memoir, Walk Like a Girl. The book traces his South Asian roots – born in Singapore, he grew up in Nepal and spent time in India – and difficult childhood. He eventually moved to New York to study at the Parsons School of Design, interning for Donna Karan and later working for Cynthia Rowley and Bill Blass. He started his own label in 2009 and has dressed celebrities including Michelle Obama, Kate Middleton, Zoe Saldana and Sarah Jessica Parker. Gurung, 46, says that processing his childhood experiences with an abusive father at home, and bullies and predators at school, to write and record the book was the hardest thing he has ever done. “I really hadn’t told too many people, not even my close friends. To relive that part and to write it down … it was harrowing, I won’t lie,” he says. “It really brought back so many memories and … it’s less of an anger. It’s more like the injustice of the situation. More than anything else, I just wanted to go back to that kid and like, give him a hug … and just be like, ‘You’re going to be OK,’” he adds, choking back tears. Despite being teased and struggling academically, Gurung always thought he was destined for a bigger life. “I don’t know, I just had it in me. I think it was survival also a lot of times.” One bright light that kept him going was the unwavering love and support of his mother, Durga Rana. She is the hero of the book, encouraging Gurung to follow his passions and find joy wherever possible, even though his interest in fashion and experimentation with make-up and feminine clothing was highly unconventional in Nepal at the time. Surviving a marriage with an unfaithful, abusive husband, she essentially raised three young children on her own. Rana developed several successful businesses and eventually got into politics, telling her children to use their platforms to make an impact. “She’s a blueprint of my strength. Watching her carry the weight of the world with such elegance was really inspiring,” Gurung says. “The way she built the world around us, unbowed, unapologetic, was, I would say, my first lesson in resilience.” The book’s title and cover are a purposeful nod to the designer’s love of women. “Walk like a girl” was something children said to tease him at school. “I just didn’t understand it as an insult in the beginning because I think, ‘Great, I’m like my mother, my sister, all these women.’ Wonder Woman was my favourite action hero, and Charlie’s Angels,” Gurung says. He decided to reclaim the phrase and chose his strength pose for the cover in honour of Rosie the Riveter and other “iconic, feminist women”. Cindi Leive, the former editor-in-chief of Glamour and Self magazines, championed Gurung early on because of his authenticity on and off the runway. “It became clear to me that he was incredibly interested not just in fashion as fashion, but in the women who would wear the clothes,” Leive says. “I also noticed that every time I would have a conversation with him, he would end up talking about his mom.” Gurung could not wait to get to the US. He felt immediately at home in New York, a place he sees as the best culmination of people, cultures and creative freedom, he writes. But he was surprised and disappointed by the general lack of diversity on fashion catwalks and at social events. “My recollection is he was one of the first to use models who more closely resembled the diversity of people that you actually see in America … in size, race and everything else,” Leive says. Gurung’s runway casting was only part of his commitment to inclusion. Now a Met Gala mainstay, he uses his platform to speak out about injustice and women’s rights issues, which, at the beginning of his career, was not a popular stance, leaving him feeling “like a lone ranger”. He recalled the emails and messages he used to get saying, “Oh, stay in your lane, you’re a fashion designer … not a politician.” “He was very open about his support for issues that mattered to women, long before it was a thing,” Leive says. “Eventually, I think, every designer had some slogan T-shirt proclaiming their support of women’s causes. He did it before anybody, but it went way deeper than the T-shirt.” Gurung says: “I’ll never forget when Cindi Leive at a dinner said to me – right after George Floyd’s murder and all of that stuff that happened, the Black Lives Matter movement – she pulled me aside, she said, ‘How does it feel now … to see the world catching up to you? You’ve been at it for such a long time.’ I didn’t even think about it.” Part of Gurung’s story is being a proud immigrant, and his connection to his Nepali roots comes through in his designs. India-born American designer Bibhu Mohapatra has been friends with Gurung since they were both starting out, bonding over their South Asian roots. He says Gurung is “naturally curious” and has always been a great storyteller. “Whether he is doing a jewellery collection, whether it’s a piece of clothing or a whole collection, it’s always sort of backed by receipts of his experiences that are his tools of telling a story … whether about craft, whether it’s about colour, whether it’s about his heritage, or simply people in his life,” Mohapatra says. “You believe it because it comes from a very authentic place.” Mohapatra also admires Gurung’s “naturally rebellious streak” and his courage to speak out for causes he values. “He’s brave to be the first one or join the force with people who are starting a movement,” he says. Mohapatra also suggests that Gurung’s spiritual side and roots add to his work and his ability to empathise. “There is an aspect of slowing down, really [paying] attention to the core and looking back at the path and … there is a bit more spirituality woven into the daily lives of people of Nepal.” Gurung says he hopes the book resonates with readers and encourages them to share their own stories. “I want people to really understand that their existence, their story, is worthy of being told, that they don’t have to hide themselves, they’re no longer invisible,” he says. “I know I’m on the cover, it’s my name and my story, but it really is a story about, for and of so many people.”

Singapore-born fashion designer Prabal Gurung shares his amazing life story in new memoir

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Met Gala mainstay’s new book, Walk Like a Girl, reflects on his roots in Singapore and Nepal, a tough childhood, and runway success

The Met Gala mainstay’s new book, Walk Like a Girl, reflects on his roots in Singapore and Nepal, a tough childhood, and runway success