Tasaki appoints Prabal Gurung as Creative Director

By

Dominique Muret

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Sep 11, 2017

There is a fresh direction for style at Tasaki. The Japanese jewellery label, which in 2009 called on the services of US designer Thakoon Panichgul, has once again been talent-scouting in New York, choosing Prabal Gurung as its new Creative Director. 

In a press release, Tasaki wrote that "the new creative director plays a key role at Tasaki, including designing the new Tasaki Atelier jewellery collection," recently unveiled at the New York Fashion Week, and which will be available at the label's Tokyo store in February 2018.
 
Prabal Gurung, 38, is renowned as Michelle Obama's stylist, and is part of a new wave of US fashion designers. He enjoys a particularly strong following in New York, where he has been showing since he launched his eponymous women's ready-to-wear label in 2009. Singapore-born Gurung grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal, and was educated at the NIFT school in New Delhi, India, before moving to New York in 1999 to polish off his creative education at the Parsons School of Design.

He took his first professional steps at Donna Karan, and after graduating from Parsons he joined the studio of US designer Cynthia Rowle. Two years later he moved to Bill Blass, where he worked for five years, also as Creative Director. In 2009, Prabal Gurung launched his solo career, his collections distinctive for their glamour tinged with exoticism, and he has been highly successful with his collaborations and awards.
 
Tasaki was founded in 1954 in Japan, and since 1994 the jeweller enjoys an exclusive status as Japan's premier raw diamond buyer with De Beers. Tasaki is also the world's top producer of Akoya pearls and, according to the group, it is the only Japanese jeweller to cultivate its own pearls.
 
Tasaki operates over fifty stores in Japan and a monobrand store in Europe, opened in 2016 on Paris' iconic place Vendôme. The brand is also distributed via several multi-brand stores and retail corners, notably at department stores like Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche and Printemps Haussmann in Paris, Harvey Nichols Knightsbridge, Webster Miami and the Dover Street Market in London and New York.