Art to me is soul healing, not just a rescue.

It's a saved my life.

I can't even tell you.

Like, if you're a queer person, if you're an immigrant, if you're a queer brown person, like you know you're on a constant fight or flight mode.

We don't get time to talk about our grief.

We don't get time to talk about our anxiety.

And what I've realized is our glorious self that we present to the world the music, the dancing, the creativity - art is our survival.

And art is that.

And it has done that for me.

Hi everyone!

I'm Prabal Gurung And this is how art changed me.

So I was born in Singapore, but primarily I grew up in Nepal and in India.

Nepal is this tiny little country, but it is also filled with wonder, like mysticism and stories that you hear that seems from the other world that almost seems like fables and stories that you read in books, but which was our daily life.

You know, we believe in magic.

We've always believe in magic, a magic of a humanity.

I remember as a kid looking at my mother, getting ready, fascinated by her coming from work, and then all of a sudden sitting in front of a vanity, putting on the makeup.

The way this is a toddler like gold eyes and makeup and hair and everything, and wearing a draping a sari and putting on the jewelry, and then all of a sudden transforming into this beautiful creature.

Right.

So I started emulating her on my own when nobody was around.

I would go to her vanity, sit and think exactly like the way she did, pick up the lipstick, you know, and started putting on the lipstick.

I just remember those tubes little tubes had when you open it, it revealed this beautiful crimson, color that could transform the way I looked.

And when I looked at the mirror, I could now see myself.

I think that was my first exposure to fashion, and it has still remained with me, because I still think fashion getting ready is oftentimes, if you really think about it, and if you allow yourself, it's a ritualistic process.

It is a time when you are by yourself getting ready, and it is really one of the most beautiful ceremonials thing where you're really honoring yourself.

That's I've always felt that way.

My reality at that point was still, like really challenging as an assemblage kid, you know, growing up, not fitting into the narrow definition set by the society of what a boy should look like, a boy should behave.

Even though I was very sure about who I was, even in my all my feminine glory, that really bothered rest of the world, I realized just to ease the pain of my loved ones.

I wanted to follow the traditional route.

Of what?

Becoming a man.

All right.

But soon then I realized that I was really unhappy.

And I remember going to India and studying there and started being exposed to, as I say, also seeing other Indian designers and thinking to myself, oh, my God, I there could be something here.

There could be.

And then it was my brother in law who mentioned it to me.

Like, you know, we should give fashion a shot.

And I didn't really I was I was like, he's, you know, he's a straight dude.

Like, why would he even think about it?

Then I now he tells me then in my he used to tutor me in mathematics and so all those books were filled with sketches of dresses.

And I turned to my sister and I said to her, you know what?

I want to give it a shot in America.

I've always felt, deep connection there, simply because of the artists that I love and look up to, whether it's Debbie Harry, Basquiat, Madonna, Marc Jacobs, all the those are I feel like they're my people.

There's the misfits with impossible dreams that came to New York, so I think I should give it a shot.

I applied to Parsons and I got through, and I came here to New York and, you know, rest, as they say, is history.

And it changed my life.

Because they grew up there.

I'm unafraid of color, literally and metaphorically in color, that I wear colorful people.

I associate and, become my friends, colorful food that I eat, the music that really has shaped the way I think about my work, because for the longest period of time, the idea of America and Americana, if you're talking about fashion, has been very much, one, I would say one myopic idea of it who gets to be American.

And it is oftentimes it is is associated with the skin color and your privilege.

The America that I came here for and the market that I see, and the America that I've been experiencing is a lot more colorful, a lot more diverse, a lot more exciting than the ones that gets depicted in the ad pages in a magazine or fashion magazine.

So when I'm working on, like in my collection or my fashion shows and things that we make, I'm always questioning my team and myself is like, does this make people feel seen?

I've brought today this little people wait, and it is like people weight that says courage.

Dear heart, C.S.

Lewis I was going through a time, a very challenging time and difficult time, and I needed some kind of symbol and sign and some some that said that I could tap into what I always had, you know, that I could go back to who I was as a person.

The courage to dream, the impossible dream.

Despite of all the challenges that I went through, even in the old boys boarding school, not fitting in or having this crazy dream to become a fashion designer.

I've always had that courage.

But somewhere in the path of, like, fitting in, in this idea of what a designer should be or what a successful person should look like, just being colonized, you know?

And so what, I kind of lost who I was.

And so I know it's the paperweight that, you know, holds up in the papers down, but it also holds down my fear.

It's a constant reminder that courage and, bravery and strength is not always loud, and it's not always out in the open.

It's not always something that you display when it's you have all the attention or the cameras on you or, like, everyone's watching you.

Courage can be just a whisper, a whisper to your heart, your soul and a whisper to.

Even to you.

Someone you love or someone you don't salute a stranger.

So it really is something that has, you know, got me through the most challenging times, to be completely honest.

Writing this book, the memoir to me, Has been one of the most daunting things that I've ever done, really.

Like, it's, it's the it's really the life has really ringed everything out of me.

And then after that, my father passed away with the home that I, towards the end of his, you know, life, like I made peace with it.

But I always had a fraught relationship with him.

So all that stuff, when that happened, my refuge, it was going back to a few things that I've always done.

Even when I was a kid, when I used to get beaten up and bullied and everything I always given to art, sketching or going to museums or stuff like that, now it's become the same thing.

I just literally dove right into things that other people, the other artists that I admire and I love have created and has become.

I cannot even tell you it's become my biggest therapy.

It's become something that has given me a meaning.

Because what it does is when you're looking at art, you remove yourself out of it and your ego out of your everything.

All of it is is so healing because it really gives us a space to be with our thoughts, with more than anything else, like hear the story sometimes spoken and spoken, and find ourselves there.

It is the only way that I know how to survive life without creativity or some kind of, music and creativity.

And art is really has no meaning.