The design duo behind Proenza Schouler, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, took fashion show attendees on a showcase of their reality and the spirit of the everyday woman at the Chelsea Factory for New York Fashion Week.
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s clothes since the beginning; they were New York ingenues together 20 years ago. However, This wasn’t an anniversary show, the designers insisted at a preview in their Soho studio, but a scroll through the Vogue Runway archive confirms that fall 2003 was their first post-Parsons graduation season. In any case, they said they’ve been taking stock, thinking about the friends and customers they’ve made over two decades. “This is our most personal collection yet,” said McCollough. “It was less revolving around a theme, more looking at the actual women in our lives: What is it they want?”
“It was totally a reflection of the women in our lives,” McCollough said after the show. “It was the first season where we made the mood board just out of headshots of the women in our lives.” Models could have easily walked off the runway and onto the New York streets in their effortlessly cool looks. Hernandez said he wanted a break from “Instagram clothes” or the flashy dressing often seen across social media.
“It’s the beginning of something new for us,” Hernandez said.
Clothes-wise, the idea was to make an art of the everyday. By adding vertical zippers to the back of blazers that flashed a hint of skin but also enhanced ease of movement, by whipping up a hoodie in the softest, plushest knit, and by cutting “jeans” in a glossy gold leather, a nod to Helmut Lang, a few of whom’s runway looks were pinned to the mood board along with photos of their Sevigny et al. The only thing that would have driven the message home more is if more of those friend-muses joined her on the runway.
