New York Fashion Week: Prabal Gurung brings Buddhist monks to the runway

Buddhist monks chant prayers before the showcase. Bryan R Smith, File / AP photo

It was an incongruous sight, even for New York Fashion Week, but a very moving one.

With the who’s who of A-list Hollywood actresses in the front row, Prabal Gurung opened his catwalk show with 30 Buddhist monks who had travelled to New York to chant a prayer of gratitude for the world’s help during the devastating earthquake that killed thousands in Gurung’s native Nepal in April.

“When the earthquake happened, the first people who came to our rescue in Nepal was the fashion industry here and I wanted to show some kind of gratitude to them,” Gurung said after the show. “I go and visit the monastery [in Nepal] all the time, and I had this idea, and they wanted to do it.”

The entire catwalk show was dedicated to Nepal, with garments in shades of lemon, saffron, peach, tea rose and other variations of orange and yellow. There was barely a dark colour in the mix. Especially effective were lovely white dresses embroidered in orange and yellow, and filmy chiffon evening gowns that floated down the catwalk. There was also some fringe and sparkle in the mix.

Gurung had a lot of celebrity support: attendees included Jennifer Hudson, Hailee Steinfeld, Laverne Cox from Orange Is the New Black, Kylie Jenner, Solange Knowles, Broadway's Phillipa Soo, and the Bush twins, Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Bush.

Cox was wearing a bright-blue Gurung creation. “I’ve just started working with Prabal,” she said. “It’s pretty cool. All of a sudden I am here, wearing his stuff at his show.”

Gurung said he hoped the world would learn a little bit about ­Nepal.

“All I wanted to do is show a little of where I’m from,” he said, “and show it to the rest of the world. I hope they’ll be enticed to go and visit, because that’s what ­Nepal needs right now.”