Walk Like a Girl
Review of Prabal Gurung Fall 2025 Fashion Show
By Mark Wittmer
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
Up to 3 key words (five max) that encapsulate the collection
Prabal Gurung’s New York is not one everybody gets to see. A habitual early riser, the designer is out riding his bike or walking at the crack of dawn most mornings, observing with a keen eye for character and story as early commuters on the way to work pass revelers on the way home after a long night. This story of crossing paths and characters who attest to a night – and a life – well-lived informs his Fall 2025 collection, which channels glamor and confidence across a lived-in, day-to-night wardrobe.
Evoking the idea of throwing on a partner’s or a lover’s shirt and dashing out the door, several key looks draw inspiration from classic men’s shirting while elongating them with a layered sense of protection and fluidity: for Prabal Gurung, a walk home from a one-night stand is anything but a “walk of shame.” That idea of feeling “lived-in” brings a new sense of story to the designer’s mastery of pleating, embroidery, and other fabric treatments, with the textiles being pleated and washed to evoke a patina of time. Later in the collection, the embellishments celebratorily take off across some gorgeously intricate embroidery and voluminous floral appliqués – a delicate and vital femininity that both harmonizes with and juxtaposes the fierceness of the designer’s take on voluminous faux-fur coats.
THE DIRECTION
THE QUOTE
I see a New York that not many people see – people either going to work, or people coming back from the work. Especially in this insane dystopian time, everyone is looking for some kind of connection, whether it’s with a partner of years or a love for one night. These clothes reflect the story, the process, of finding and making those connections.”
THE WRAP UP
The collection arrives at a moment of reflection and culmination for Gurung, as the memoir he’s been working on for seven years, titled Walk Like a Girl, is finally releasing in May. It’s a fitting title to share with a runway show that beautifully celebrates women who walk and live with confidence, who inhabit their clothing as they do their life: with freedom, with power, and with love.
