The designer interview: Proenza Schouler
After 14 years as arbiters of New York cool, LAZARO HERNANDEZ and JACK McCOLLOUGH are adding some serious sophistication to Proenza Schouler’s DNA. By EMMA SELLS
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez are feeling pretty relaxed. They’ve just come back from vacation: one week in their country house – a sanctuary upstate in the Berkshires – that was interspersed with emails and trips back to the Proenza Schouler studio; a second week on Fire Island, which was more switched off. Sure, the small matters of their SS17 show (“The most fun part of our job,” says Hernandez), the imminent arrival of a new CEO (Judd Crane, former Womenswear Director at Selfridges), and an as-yet-unnamed fragrance all need to be dealt with. But right now, as we sit in the sunshine on a Lower East Side roof terrace, the designers – laid-back, handsome, tanned – are in good spirits. As well they should be: these are exciting times for the pair behind one of NYC’s hottest labels.
Proenza Schouler (pronounced school-er, named impulsively after each of their mothers’ maiden names), is now 14 years old, a New York fashion stalwart beloved of style insiders and Michelle Obama alike. McCollough and Hernandez can be relied upon to dish out sophisticated, design-focused pieces with enough street cred to keep them modern and relevant yet always wearable.
The label’s aesthetic has evolved since its early days, when the pair were not just dressing New York’s coolest girls, but partying with them, too. (They have matching, now-faded star tattoos behind their left ears; souvenirs from back then that they often forget they have). They may not party as hard these days, but the thread that continues to hold every collection together is the duo’s obsession with art, design and creating innovative, luxury, game-changing clothes. Which is why you’re just as likely to see Chloë Sevigny, Alicia Vikander and Emma Watson wear their pieces as Julianne Moore or Cate Blanchett.
“In the beginning, it was about doing short, tight, more night-time clothes. Now, it’s more day-focused, more refined and discreet
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“The Proenza Schouler woman is the female counterpart to us, so when we describe her, we’re also describing ourselves,” says Hernandez. “Over the years, she has grown up alongside us. In the beginning, it was about doing short, tight, more night-time clothes. Now, it’s more day-focused, more refined and discreet. She’s a little more sophisticated, but still in a cool way. There’s a casualness and looseness to the way she wears the clothes.”
For FW16 – as seen here on model Selena Forrest, the face of the label for the past two seasons – that meant piecing back together the clothes they had peeled away the season before: coats nipped in at the waist; sweaters with cut-outs that had been laced back together; and long, fluid silhouettes, which, typically for Proenza, are strong and sexy without being over-exposed or over-done.
McCollough and Hernandez can pinpoint the exact moment they decided to give their own label a go. It was in 2002, just as they graduated from Parsons School Of Design in New York (the first duo in the college’s history to be granted permission to work on their final-year thesis together), and hours after they’d been to their one and only job interview. With only one portfolio between them, they’d tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade a fashion house to employ them both in one role, before realizing they’d better go it alone or team up for good. So, with no knowledge of how to build a business, they forged ahead, winging it and roping in friends and friends of friends to help them as they grew.
“The whole world has evolved so much and fashion is kind of stuck in the past. It’s ironic. Fashion is supposed to push the boundaries
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Since then they’ve weathered the tricky transition from emerging label to credible, established brand with apparent ease, cementing their place at the forefront of American fashion’s new generation of names to be reckoned with. They’ve won five CFDA awards, created a cult-status handbag – the PS1, a boyish satchel considered the anti-It bag – and opened two Manhattan stores in the process. The secret to their success seems to be staying on their toes: they’re not afraid to mix things up, which, at a time when the industry is undergoing seismic shifts, should serve them well. They dipped their toe in the see-now-buy-now water last season, but have no immediate plans to try it again, deciding that they prefer to give us more time to absorb what’s on offer. “The whole world has evolved so much and fashion is kind of stuck in the past,” says Hernandez. “It’s ironic. Fashion is supposed to push the boundaries.”
“We like to think when someone puts on our clothes, they feel strong and confident and great about themselves, ready to face any situation and able to attack anything
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Success as a double act inevitably involves a hefty dose of compromise, and having lived and worked together for such a long time, McCollough and Hernandez have got it down to a fine art. At the beginning of every season, they hole up in the Berkshires for a week, sketch half the collection each, and take it from there. “I think what makes Proenza Proenza is that it’s the two of us,” says McCollough. “If one of us were doing it alone it would be totally different. We each have our own energies; if I want white and he wants black, we do gray, that’s what we always say. And it’s true. We have to listen to each other and know when to step back and when to assert your position. It’s a delicate back and forth.”
It’s certainly working, for them and for all of us who covet their collections. “We like to think that when someone puts on our clothes, they feel strong and confident and great about themselves, ready to face any situation and able to attack anything,” says Hernandez. “We want the clothes to be an armor. Confidence is the most attractive quality – that’s what makes someone cool and chic.”
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