After this week’s revelation that Condé Nast International had banned the work of photographer Terry Richardson from its glossy magazines, the designer Prabal Gurung began to consider the fact he had long been aware of the allegations that Richardson was sexually abusive towards models.
Gurung has a history of speaking up on issues well beyond fashion trends, from diversity in all its iterations to discrimination. He established a charitable foundation to help rebuild his native Nepal after its devastating earthquake in 2015. Yet even though he’d heard the allegations against Richardson for years, he did nothing of substance.
“We can be guilty of posting something [online] and feeling like we’ve done our deed,” Gurung told the Post. “It’s just not in fashion; it’s in any field. How many of us are brave enough to go out on our own and speak the truth? We operate on the idea of wanting to belong.”
He added: “I, too, am part of the problem.”
Fashion, he says, is supposed to be about encouraging radical new ideas and up-ending tradition. “But oftentimes it’s not,” Gurung noted. “How many of us are really radical? And I’m including myself.”
There’s a tendency to trivialize the impact of his industry. We’re not curing cancer: It’s just fashion! Instead of taking a risk, there’s a fear of ruffling feathers. A fear of being first or being out of the norm or being perceived as that buzz-kill of a person who’s always on a soap box, he says. What drives that psychology? Gurung wonders if it’s borne out of the belief that the fashion industry is an exclusive club with a limited number of memberships.
“We’ve created this whole myth with fashion,” Gurung said. “There’s this fear that only a select few can sit at this table and the rest of you can’t.”
That’s changing. Fashion has begun welcoming a broader array of people into its ranks. And perhaps the knowledge that fashion has room for more dreamers, storytellers and innovators, will make those folks more willing to stand out by speaking up. “We as human beings are very afraid of confrontation,” Gurung says. “I always believe confrontation results in dialogue and that leads to solutions.”