The book’s title and cover are a purposeful nod to the designer’s love of women. “Walk Like a Girl” was something kids said to tease him at school.
“I just didn’t understand it as an insult in the beginning because I think ‘Great, I’m like my mother, my sister, all these women.’ Wonder Woman was my favorite action hero, and Charlie’s Angels,” Gurung said.
He decided to reclaim the phrase and chose his strength pose for the cover in honour of Rosie the Riveter and other “iconic, feminist women.”
Cindi Leive, the former editor-in-chief of Glamour and Self magazines, championed Gurung early on because of his authenticity on and off the runway.
“It became clear to me that he was incredibly interested not just in fashion as fashion, but in the women who would wear the clothes,” Leive told the AP. “I also noticed that every time I would have a conversation with him, he would end up talking about his mom.”
Gurung couldn’t wait to get to the US; he felt immediately at home in New York, a place he sees as the best culmination of people, cultures and creative freedom, he writes. But he was surprised and disappointed by the general lack of diversity on runways and at social events.
“My recollection is he was one of the first to use models who more closely resembled the diversity of people that you actually see in America … in size, race and everything else,” Leive said.
Gurung’s runway casting was only part of his commitment to inclusion. Now a Met Gala mainstay, Gurung uses his platform to speak out about injustice and women’s rights issues, which, at the beginning of his career was not a popular stance, leaving him feeling “like a lone ranger.” He recalled the emails and messages he used to get saying, “Oh, stay in your lane, you’re a fashion designer … not a politician.”
“He was very open about his support for issues that mattered to women, long before it was a thing. Eventually, I think, every designer had some, you know, slogan T-shirt proclaiming their support of women’s causes. He did it before anybody, but it went way deeper than the T-shirt,” Leive said.
“I’ll never forget when Cindi Leive at a dinner said to me — right after George Floyd’s murder and all of that stuff that happened, the Black Lives Matter movement,” Gurung said. “She pulled me aside, she said, ‘How does it feel now … to see the world catching up to you? You’ve been at it for such a long time.’ I didn’t even think about it.”
