Out on Their Own, and Making It Work

EVER since Prabal Gurung left his employer in the garment district, last winter, and sank his savings into his own label — at the worst possible time — he has been more aware of the silly and duplicitous nature of fashion. It may just be him, or the economy, but he doesn’t think so.

Mr. Gurung learned to make beautiful clothes at Bill Blass. There was really no reason for a young man to work at a dusty firm like Blass except to learn things that only old tailors knew. He stayed five years. But when friends in the industry heard of his plans to start a line, they seemed to forget about tailoring and craft. They told him he should make clothes like Balmain.

Mr. Gurung wanted to laugh. Balmain was hot, but he couldn’t see how it benefited anyone to have another designer do torn jeans and $12,000 beaded minidresses.

“It’s not my voice,” he said.

Before the recession hit, the sophisticated voice was something that American buyers and editors said they wanted to see. It was as though the system, at least in New York, had become awash in brand-spouting hipsters, trust-fund kids with handbag lines and “Project Runway” rejects. Where were the smart grown-ups?

Mr. Gurung, a calm, observant 30-year-old who grew up in Katmandu, in Nepal, impressed people at his debut in February. His clothes had conspicuous polish, both in sensibility and cut. Nobody uses the word chic much today, but that’s what they were. His lanky cashmere jackets, masculine trousers in wool or leather, and splashes of feathers recalled Saint Laurent. The proportions were modern.

Women’s Wear Daily put his one-shoulder red silk faille dress on its cover. Four stores bought the line, including Bloomingdale’s and DNA, a boutique in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, owned by Princess Deena Abdulaziz, whose advance payment helped Mr. Gurung pay some bills.

Although sexier, the clothes of Joseph Altuzarra, another new designer (he spent two years at Givenchy), have also shown unusual finesse. Mr. Altuzarra, 25, who designs and produces his clothes in Europe but lives in a small one-bedroom apartment on Lexington Avenue, admits he is pushed by the creativity of European stars like Nicolas Ghesquiere of Balenciaga. Yet the designer he probably admires most is Tom Ford, the former Gucci creative director, because “he knew what women wanted at a certain moment.”

Mr. Altuzarra’s draped dresses in ivory or lilac georgette dresses with ruched details express that balance between extreme modernity and feminine practicality. In business for two seasons, he picked up half a dozen new stores for fall, including Holt Renfrew and Colette in Paris, in addition to Barneys and Ikram in Chicago (the pipeline retailer to Michelle Obama).

Despite the terrifying economic news of last winter and then the broad reappraisal of luxury spending, Mr. Gurung and Mr. Altuzarra, whose prices are about $1,500 to $2,500, have done pretty well for themselves.

Yet it is clear from talking to them that their main struggle has been with the expectations of an industry that has enjoyed too much money and celebrity, is prone to mystification and is fast losing the ability to recognize what makes a design original or modern — and not.

“I’ve certainly been told who I need to be hanging out with,” Mr. Gurung said one afternoon in his tiny studio apartment on East Fourth Street. Although the place was clean and neat, with room for a bed, a bookcase, a table and an area for fittings, he typically shows his clothes to buyers in an apartment that belongs to a rich friend.

Five or six years ago buyers expected to find a young designer sleeping in a hole next to his fabrics. That’s where they found Miguel Adrover. He had even stopped paying the rent, he was so down and out. Now, though, they expect to see a designer in a luxury apartment he can’t possibly afford.

So Mr. Gurung obliges. That’s the game.

“I like being frugal,” he said. “It limits you; it makes you think.” Because of the recession he has been able to get deals on fabrics. And because of his background on Seventh Avenue, he has been able to negotiate with local factories eager for extra sewing to keep their workers busy. “You have to go to Nepal to understand what real difficulty is,” he said. “The East Village — it’s not that bad.”

Both Mr. Gurung and Mr. Altuzarra said they had received good advice from retailers. Mr. Altuzarra, who started his business with money from his father, an investment banker — and recently needed a new injection to cover production costs — said buyers wanted to see more variety in his line. They said American women won’t wear dresses without a bra.

“The bra thing in America is huge, in comparison to Europe,” he said.

But there is also the question of whether buyers really know what they want. Can they recognize the difference they craved? Mr. Gurung said a number of retailers told him they wanted to see “modern fabrics.”

He thought that was an excuse not to buy the line, so he asked them, “What is modern to you?” They answered, “Some kind of modern feel.”

Mr. Gurung, who uses cashmere and wool, laughed. “I think they meant some kind of techy fabric,” he said.

New York Times