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"Earlier this week, the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation announced the seven lucky designers who scooped up $25,000 each--and some serious exposure--to put towards their fall 2010 fashion shows. Prabal Gurung, the up-and-coming master of ultra-feminine dresses, nabbed a coveted spot in the winner&amp;#x27;s circle...and now he&amp;#x27;s chatting with STF about how Oprah Winfrey may have had a huge hand in that (in more than one way!). STF: Congratulations on your award! Must be nice to be in the same company as past winners like Proenza Schouler and Rodarte...how&amp;#x27;d you find out? PG: I actually read about it in Womenswear Daily on Monday. I had just flown back from holiday in Tortola with some friends and I saw it and I was just like, holy cow. It&amp;#x27;s so exciting. I never expect these kinds of things to happen! STF: How are you going to spend the $25,000 Ecco Domani gave you to put towards your fall 2010 show? PG: My first two seasons, I held presentations, and now with the money from Ecco Domani I&amp;#x27;m going to do my first runway show. This season is going to have a more three-dimensional quality to it. The dreams that I&amp;#x27;ve had as a designer--you envision a lot of stuff, but there&amp;#x27;s always a budget issue, especially for a young designer like me who is self financed. As much as i have big dreams, I have to be realistic about stuff. The Ecco Domani money made dreams that were impossible to me possible. It&amp;#x27;s going to help me add more pieces to the collection, up the production values, and show on the runway. Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;amp;#8217;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! STF: Your business has grown so much so quickly and yet you launched it at such a funny time--doing a beautiful, expensive luxury line in the middle of a recession. How did you manage that? PG: Ask anyone who knows me and they&amp;#x27;ll say I&amp;#x27;m a total planner. I always have a five, ten, 20 year plan, and I always had my eye on doing my first collection for fall 2009. Ten years ago when I decided that, I had no idea it would be a recession but for some reason it just felt right. There&amp;#x27;s room in fashion for anybody and everybody who has integrity and believes in what they do. I thought, &amp;quot;If I can just find a small audience who responds to this, I&amp;#x27;ll consider it a job well done for my first collection.&amp;quot; But it just blossomed. STF: No kidding! Your very first collection was on the cover of Womenswear Daily. How did that feel? PG: That was just the biggest moment for me. When you think about it, there are only a week&amp;#x27;s worth of covers and it&amp;#x27;s always the usual suspects, who I think deserve to be there--Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren. But when they decided to put my first collection on the cover, that just changed the whole ballgame. People started calling me to tell me and I just couldn&amp;#x27;t believe it. STF: There have been a few more &amp;quot;pinch me!&amp;quot; moments since then, too. Oprah, Demi Moore... PG: Rachel Zoe and Brad were the ones who pulled a dress for Demi from me, and she wore it, and then she started Tweeting about it! People told me and I was like &amp;quot;Demi who?&amp;quot; I thought they were kidding! But I went on the internet and looked and there was Demi giving me support and wearing my dress. STF: And then Oprah wore one of your dresses on the cover of her magazine. PG: Oh, the Oprah moment! One of the reasons why I left Nepal and came here is because 10 years ago I was watching her show and there was one episode all about living your dream. I&amp;#x27;d never been to America, to new york, and I thought, &amp;quot;why not, I want to give it a shot!&amp;quot; So I have always, always been in awe of Oprah--who doesn&amp;#x27;t love her--and that was a feeling I will never forget. STF: Any celebrities you would just die to dress that you haven&amp;#x27;t yet? PG: My dream right now would be for Michelle Obama to wear one of my dresses. She embodies what it is to be a modern American woman in every possible way--smart, educated, confident enough to just let her husband be in the forefront yet still command her own attention. That would be my dream. STF: So what&amp;#x27;s the next step for you in expanding your business? Can we expect to see accessories or menswear anytime soon? PG: I don&amp;#x27;t want to jump. I want to take a steady pace of building the business. I definitely want to expand into all of the categories, but when it feels right at the right time. I want to get into accessories, menswear, a lower priced line... STF: Would you want a bridge line under your own name, or would you do a collaboration? PG: I&amp;#x27;d love to do a collaboration with Target! I just love what they&amp;#x27;re doing. STF: At the rate you&amp;#x27;re moving, it sounds like it might not be far off. PG: People love to say &amp;quot;Oh, you were an overnight success,&amp;quot; but I really did pay my dues. And now I&amp;#x27;m truly living my American dream. All the stuff that has happened to me wouldn&amp;#x27;t be possible in any other country. The beauty of living in America and the American fashion scene in particular is that they&amp;#x27;re very willing to take a chance on you. What I would love to let unsung heroes know, these assistant designers, is that your time will come. Just learn the craft, and when the time comes it will be amazing. Prabal Gurung will show his fall 2010 collection in New York this February--and will also participate in Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation&amp;#x27;s first-ever joint runway show on February 15, featuring looks from all seven winners. Find out more about the EDFF here and more about Prabal Gurung here. What you dolls think of his designs? Are you excited that he&amp;#x27;s about to become so major? Which of these dresses is your favorite? Discuss! More Ways to Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering or logging in to Glamour.com! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage Follow Slaves to Fashion on Twitter! Photos: courtesy of Prabal Gurung; Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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