The Prabal Gurung x Tasaki Fine Jewelry Collection Takes Pearls From Grandma to Glam - Vogue.com
What to expect from the Prabal Gurung x Tasaki fine jewelry collection? Not your grandmother’s pearls. Gurung, following in Thakoon Panichgul’s footsteps, is the second New York–based designer the Japanese company has tapped to create forward-looking pieces using its heirloom-quality gemstones.
For the past two seasons, Gurung has used his runway presentations, in part, as political platforms with female empowerment being his leading cause: Gloria Steinem was a muse for Spring 2017, and among the slogans he used for Fall were “Nevertheless, she persisted” and “This is what a feminist looks like.” There is no obvious sloganeering in Gurung’s Tasaki collaboration, but, he tells Vogue exclusively, feminist ideology was very much part of his approach. Traditionally, expensive jewelry has been given as a gift from a man to a woman (think Taylor and Burton); by distorting such customs and using “organic curves and graphic lines” in place of more classical design elements, Gurung’s aim was to introduce a “broadened and individual definition of beauty.”
The designer settled on two distinct sources of inspiration as he worked toward this goal: Surrealism and Japan’s legendary Ama pearl-diving maidens. To Gurung, images of these “mermaids” seemed “dreamlike, somewhere between the real and the surreal.” Dream states were also important to the Surrealists, like Salvador Dalí and Meret Oppenheim—creator of a fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon—who created art that was disconnected from logic and the harsh realities of the early 20th century. “Dreamers Awake,” an exhibition of the work of contemporary female Surrealist artists at White Cube in London (which addressed the female gaze and its ownership), powerfully affected Gurung. “I became fascinated by the portrayal of these pearl-diving mermaids, but looking at them through a modern, feminist lens turned them into symbols of self-expression, resistance, [and] irony. Thinking beings who beg the question of what the pursuit for beauty really means.”
In the context of the Prabal Gurung x Tasaki collection, beauty is equated with gold, pearls, diamonds, and colorful gemstones, to which the designer has applied his signature “couture” approach. “We only work with the highest-quality materials using ethical and sustainable production methods,” he states. A modern approach aimed at forward-thinking women who are asking how they can use pearls in a contemporary way. Gurung, who believes beauty is in the eye of the beholder, replies: “Wear them as you wish!”
