When I met Prabal Gurung for a walk-through of his Atelier collection, hanging on a rack behind him was one of those dress-like-the-statue-you-want-to-win gowns—a strapless column in a burnished, glowing gold. You’d know it if you saw it because comedian Nikki Glaser recently wore it when she hosted the Golden Globes, which attracted 9.3 million viewers, some of them primarily there for the fashion. Fast forward a few weeks and the inauguration offered another dress-up spectacle. It would seem that despite a feeling of general unrest, the other half is not only living well, but leaning into classic occasion attire.
It often seems there are at least two degrees of reference when it comes to celebrity red carpet dressing, and you can see how that played out in this collection where there were dresses with petticoats, lean looks a la Joan Crawford, and ruffled dazzlers with a Ginger Rogers kind of flair. The final look, with diamanté corset lacing at the sides of the body, fell into what the designer jokingly referred to, echoing his friends’ lingo, as “sweet and slutty.” On the other end of the spectrum was look 26, a high waisted pink gown with a cape back and rhinestone ball buttons that conjured Lee Radziwill and the swans.
Eveningwear tends to be rather templated, with colors and fabrics changing at a greater frequency than silhouettes. Gurung, a man about town, knows his customer and, he said, she wants a princess moment, not something especially fashion forward. As such there was no narrative here, rather options for different body sizes and tastes. Although Gurung’s designs can fit diverse body shapes, he reported that thin is in: “In this Ozempic era, everybody wants to show off their body—it’s insane.”
Occasion dressing feels static, and the way Gurung photographed the looks made them appear to be monumental. Up close they felt more relatable, and there were some beauties. The workmanship on a caviar black beaded lampshade dress was incredible, and the polka dot numbers had a certain nostalgic charm. I asked Gurung, where do nostalgia and conservatism meet? He posited that “during uncertain times” people feel comfort in what came before. And, he added, there’s a power in femininity. Today’s woman, he noted, is dressing for herself, rather than to please a man. Let’s not forget the photo ops, though. The camera is the new magic wand.
