The beginning looks at Prabal Gurung’s SS15 show were very ‘sea froth’, with billowing waist sashes and anemone-like stitching exuding gently from sheer, gauzy garments and sheaths with billowing sleeves. The envelope pushed further toward the surreal with dresses fabricated from draping silk sashes and cross-cut layers, printed with Oriental-style mountainscape illustrations. It was, as models strutted the runway in looks reminiscent of the rural Orient, as if the viewer transitioned from mountainous terrain to the serenity of the woods — lustrous vertically formed weavings made up dresses and skirts.
As a forefronted interruption from the nature aesthetic, Gurung also introduced fluorescent, cross-body, cutout knitwear and pocketed skinny trousers with a new age gothic flair. Leather partnered with floral and intertwined the dichotomous aesthetics, growing in gumption to the point of peacock-like frilliness rising up from flowy, tiered ballerina skirts to flouncy, layered adornments trimming the neck. The collection presented itself full-circle, reintroducing the anemone motif with shameless grandeur, the sash-as-pant-accoutrement, and the gauzy skirts, moving down the runway like the rolling crests of frothy waves.
As a whole, Gurung’s SS15 line was incredibly cohesive. It was well-presented, and the fluid arrangement of looks spoke to (and for) the collection’s conceptual clarity.
by Emily R Pellerin
Images by Style.com