Prabal Gurung's latest offering might be the most inventive blending of art and commerce we've seen from the Pre-Fall 2013 collections so far.
The designer managed to distill references as disparate as his homeland of Nepal and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, parts of which were filmed in Mexico, into a collection that preserved the visual appeal of his last outing without mimicking all of its embellishment. A metallic tweed in bright neon blue, green, and pink was combined with black fabric for a lightweight coat and a shift dress, and floral prints and patterns dominated where solid blocks of color or black and white did not.
There were a few dresses that Gurung couldn't help decorating, though, most notably a black dress with panels of white and purple fabric that got covered in a lattice of blue and green blooms. That dress, like so many others in this collection, struck the hard-to-get balance between a dream and something you can actually buy and wear.
Photos courtesy of Prabal Gurung.
