Women's
Conversation With: Proenza Schouler’s Lazaro and Jack
Our fashion director catches up with two of fashion’s brightest stars: Proenza Schouler designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez.
Ken Downing, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez
Ken Downing: Jack, Lazaro, Proenza Schouler is one of the most dynamic and directional collections on the American fashion scene. How do the two of you continue to stay ahead of the curve?
Lazaro Hernandez: We make it up to stay ahead! We reject popular things. We allow everything to inspire us—music, art, people. Nothing is sacred.
KD: It certainly works for you. You’ve had the attention of the fashion world from your very first show. How old were you when you started the collection?
LH: 23
Jack McCollough: No, no, we were 22.
LH: 22, 23… We were very young, just out of Parsons School of Design.
Proenza Schouler, Fall 2012
KD: And the decision to call the collection Proenza Schouler after your mothers’ maiden names?
LH: It was a very last minute decision. Our moms loved it, our dads, not so much.
JM: Our dads did not understand why we were not fine with our own last names.
KD: Did it propel your mothers into instant celebrities amongst their circle of friends, having your collection named after them?
JM: My parents live in England. I am not sure if my mother’s friends know who I am.
KD: But you’re not English.
JM: No, no, I was born in Tokyo, lived in New Jersey, a little bit of everywhere.
LH: My mother loves it! My family is from Miami. Her friends totally get into the idea that the collection is named after her.
The statement handbag on the runway at Proenza Schouler's Fall 2012 show.
KD: Lazaro, did being raised in Miami have a lot of influence on you and your ideas of style when you were younger?
LH: 100% influenced. When I was 15, 16, 17 years old, it was all about Gianni Versace, the Versace mansion, Donatella, Madonna, Ingrid Casares… Bruce Weber was on the beach, photographing models. It was all so fabulous! I remember my first designer purchase at the time was from Todd Oldham.
KD: Wow, there is a blast from the past. Todd started his career in the display department at Neiman Marcus in Dallas. Jack, do you find ideas from your childhood influenced you?
JM: Art has always been a major influence to me. When I was younger, I went to boarding school. I did a lot of painting and sculpture.
KD: Do you remember your first fashion purchase?
JM: I have no idea.
KD: Given your early interest in painting and sculpture, do you see fashion as an art form?
JM: Fashion design is design.
LH: Design has a function.
KD: Does everything the two of you design have function?
Proenza Schouler, Fall 2012
LH [laughing]: Sometimes it doesn’t.
KD: Don’t feel bad, you’re not the first to have a vision that didn’t function. Does one of you create one part of the collection, one of you the other?
LH: We sketch side by side. We like ideas that are more abstract; we like the idea of structure. One of us may design one part of the show, the other another part, but we are always working in tandem with each other.
JM: Originally, when we created our collections, we designed separate pieces—a blouse, a pant, sportswear—and we styled them into a collection.
LH: Today, we create a storyboard of looks start to finish, almost like a movie. Surface interest is very important to us and to the collection. All the fabrics in the Fall 2012 show were developed from scratch, start to finish. Our interest in textiles is often the starting point.
JM: Fabric technology is what we find most modern. A surface is limitless.
KD: Your Fall collection was a tour de force, one of my favorite collections of the season and one of my favorite collections of yours to date.
LH: We had traveled to Mt. Everest and Bhutan. You can see throughout the collection the influences. The white of the Himalayas, Kendo, the idea of protection, Chinoiserie, all very influential to us.
JM: We researched ancient costumes. That inspired the padding and the quilted leathers.
The Jacket on the runway at Proenza Schouler's Fall 2012 show.
KD: It is a supersophisticated collection that informed many of your early shows.
LH: We have come a long way from seersucker to Chinoiserie!
KD: Life is certainly a journey. I have enjoyed the many you have taken me on from the front row. Can you give me an idea of what we may see in the upcoming Spring 2013 collection, without giving too many secrets away?
LH: Color! Acid color.
Ken laughs it up with Jack and Laz.
Read the full conversation in the September issue of The Book from Neiman Marcus.
