Yahoo Lifestyle The Proenza Schouler Designers Are Stepping Away From Their Label
Today, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez announced that they are leaving Proenza Schouler after 23 years. The designers have not yet revealed what’s next for them but rumors have intensified in the last week that the duo may be heading to LVMH brand Loewe, though this has yet to be officially confirmed. What we do know is the company will remain in operation and that the designers will remain shareholders and stay on the board as advisors. The brand is yet to name a successor but noted in a release from the brand that, along with their newly appointed CEO Shira Suveyke Snyder, they're "working to identify a new creative lead for the brand." The announcement marks a bittersweet moment and the end of a fashion era, particularly for the city of New York, where the designers have been a mainstay.
In a statement, Hernandez said, "We have always valued risk-taking and a sense of adventure and feel ready to open ourselves up for whatever comes next." McCollough also said, "We will miss working each and every day with the extraordinary teams that we have built at Proenza Schouler, who are like family to us. We could never have experienced the highs we have had over the years without their hard work and dedication to our vision, nor could we have sustained the more difficult moments without their unwavering support and faith in what we do."
Their rise over the last two decades has been widely lauded. They invented the archetype of the “darling” designer back in the early 2000s, a time when New York fashion was experiencing a post-90s minimalist renaissance. They took the uptown polish of legends like Donna Karan and Calvin Klein and gave it their own downtown edge. Their runway looks proposed infinite ways to think about everyday dressing, particularly for the American woman. They paired futuristic, bustier maillots with belted Bermuda shorts and bright bandage tops with classic pleated A-line skirts–elegance and glamour smashed together with kink. Consumers and fashion fanatics at that time were charmed by independent designers who had something to say rather than by the gleam of neatly packaged luxury aspiration. The Proenza Schouler designers didn’t just burst onto that scene; they catalyzed it.
McCullough and Hernandez attended Parsons School of Design together and interned at Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors, respectively. Barneys New York, at the time a retail mecca of young and exciting design talent, famously purchased their entire graduation collection in 2002, and thus, the label bearing each of their mothers’ maiden names was born. With their idiosyncratic silhouettes and styling, McCollough and Hernandez proposed a more rebellious, intellectually stimulating way of dressing for the everyday. It was chic when chic really meant something.
The muses who wore Proenza Schouler best included Chloë Sevigny (who walked in their Fall 2023 show) and the Olsen twins, also the Traina sisters. Referring to the fact that one of their friends brought Debbie Harry to their first official fashion show at the New York Arts Club, Hernandez said to Bazaar in 2007, “We like people who are a little more, like, fuck you, and tougher, cooler.”
Cool factor is a priceless commodity to come by in fashion these days, and even after their initial success, McCollough and Hernandez kept that elusive aura around their brand throughout its entire evolution. The launch of the PS1 bag in 2008 elevated Proenza Schouler to a new kind of global commercial success, as did their shoes and their Target collaboration in 2007. In recent years, they’ve held some of New York Fashion Week’s most celebrated runway collections and tapped new brand faces from Pamela Anderson to Bella Hadid.
Undoubtedly, whatever comes next for McCollough and Hernandez will be inspiring. They’ve always let their creativity and vision lead their business, and even as they step aside, the Proenza Schouler legacy will continue to thrive because of what they’ve built and the boundless way they’ve done it. Is it a risk for them to step away from their own label? Maybe. But that fearlessness has served them well over the last two decades. In that same 2007 article in Bazaar, Hernandez said it best: “When we started this, we had nothing. We were just two little nerds out of school. What could we possibly have to lose?”
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