Lazaro Hernandez

boutiques

Proenza Schouler's First Collection Gets a Cool Window Treatment

It should come as no surprise that the windows advertising Proenza Schouler's First Collection capsule at Barneys have tanks of moving liquid and lasers around the clothes.

It should come as no surprise that the windows advertising Proenza Schouler's First Collection capsule at Barneys have tanks of moving liquid and lasers around the clothes. After all, these are the designers who made a CGI purple dolphin swim through sand for a fashion video last year.

The window displays, unveiled at the Barneys Madison Avenue flagship store in New York this week, are similarly avant-garde. The phosphorescent rocks, beams of light, and electrical cords running through the installations are meant to look a little like the kind of experiments one might observe in a high school science lab — albeit a particularly chic one. The retailer's creative director, Dennis Freedman, worked with Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez to pull the displays together, showcasing pieces from the Proenza Schouler archives along with garments shoppers can buy in the store and online.

A look at more of the windows, here.

collections

Proenza Schouler Resort 2014: An Experiment and a Challenge

Fresh off their CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year award, Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez are ever so slightly tweaking their signature pieces for Resort 2014.

Fresh off their CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year award, Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez are ever so slightly tweaking their signature pieces for Resort 2014. "Pre-collections are fun because you get to experiment," McCollough told WWD, and that they did.

While the designers riffed on core components of their Fall 2013 collection — fluidity, layering, and graphic patterns — they also ushered in a new mode of movement via accordion-pleated skirts. Cropped tops were styled with high-waisted versions, rounded cropped jackets and oversize sweaters were paired with skirts that hit just below the knee, and with each look, came tough black sandals, accented with PS11 hardware. To finish, McCollough and Hernandez really drove the experimental point home with two body-conscious black dresses — a preview of something they'd "never" done before: draping. Consider this your first hint for Spring 2014.

Shopping

Proenza Schouler's First Collection Is Back at Barneys — Shop It Like It's 2003

On the heels of Proenza Schouler's big CFDA win this week, design duo Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have something else to celebrate.
Proenza Schouler First Collection at Barneys

On the heels of Proenza Schouler's big CFDA win this week, design duo Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have something else to celebrate. To commemorate the label's 10-year anniversary, Barneys New York is taking us back to where it all began with an exclusive limited-edition reissuing of Proenza's 19-piece Fall 2003 collection.

It's a fitting tribute from the retailer, who bought the very first collection in 2002 before the designers' first runway show in 2003. Now, we're getting a second chance to score a piece of fashion industry history from the label's first collection, which features gorgeous suede, the perfect trench coat, and the coolest kind of bustier — all reinterpreted with a modern 2013 finish. We've handpicked a few favorites; just click through to shop — then check in at Barneys for a little trip down memory lane with Jack and Lazaro.

Shopping

Surf's Up: Shop Proenza Schouler's Exclusive Capsule With Net-a-Porter

Today marks the debut of Proenza Schouler's exclusive capsule collection with Net-a-Porter.com — the first time designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have designed a limited-edition line under their brand specifically for one retailer.

Today marks the debut of Proenza Schouler's exclusive capsule collection with Net-a-Porter.com — the first time designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have designed a limited-edition line under their brand specifically for one retailer. (Their much-beloved collaboration with Target's Go International program was sold both at Target and Opening Ceremony.)

The nine-piece collection the two created for Net-a-Porter.com — which includes miniskirts, a t-shirt, a sweater, and shorts, among other items — is based on some of the bestselling pieces from past Pre-Spring collections, but the styling takes cues from surfing. The offering includes a pair of leather board shorts, a tweed pullover with a drawstring hood, and a cotton jacket printed with an aqua-and-black print that, from far away, looks like a very geometric exercise in tie-dyeing.

Get a look at all the pieces here in the gallery.

Photo courtesy of Net-a-Porter
Proenza Schouler

Homes of Their Own: Inside the Proenza Schouler Apartments

The New York City apartment Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough put on the market this Fall sold fast, but don't worry — Lazaro Hernandez's place is still up for grabs.
Proenza Schouler's Hernandez and McCollough Apartment Photos

The New York City apartment Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough put on the market this Fall sold fast, but don't worry — Lazaro Hernandez's place is still up for grabs.

Both designers listed their homes for sale on the same day in October, and McCollough's two-bedroom West Village duplex just sold for $1,895,000. But Hernandez recently reduced the asking price for his apartment — which takes up the parlor floor of a townhouse in Chelsea — from $985,000 down to $950,000.

Why both places didn't sell immediately is a mystery: McCollough's light-filled, two-floor apartment has a modern, clean-lined sleekness to it that's warmed up with natural elements like a wall of wood cabinetry in the living room and dark gray stone countertops in the kitchen. There's even a small terrace just steps away from the study.

Hernandez's home is furnished and appointed a little more traditionally: there's a brick fireplace in the living room, which features wooden shutters on its windows. The terrace here is slightly larger than at McCollough's place, and accommodates a table, chairs, and an outdoor sectional.

Speculation has the couple pooling their resources and moving in together, but until then, here's a glimpse of both homes here in the gallery.

Photos via Corcoran.

Proenza Schouler

Proenza Schouler Pre-Fall 2013

For Proenza Schouler's Pre-Fall 2013 offering, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez applied a mix of inventive patterns and imagery to the shapes they've had success with in the past.
Proenza Schouler Pre-Fall 2013 | Pictures

For Proenza Schouler's Pre-Fall 2013 offering, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez applied a mix of inventive patterns and imagery to the shapes they've had success with in the past.

The blue and orange hues from photographs the designing duo took on a trip to Fiji ended up on a number of pieces, most notably a coat with an asymmetrical neckline. A painterly logo print got cut up for trousers cut on the bias and a belted shift with a carwash hem.

That these pieces are simpler in shape and implication than their runway counterparts — as most precollections are — may have to do with McCollough and Hernandez's new roles as retailers who want to sell product. But it could also very well be a sign that after a decade in the business, these two young men are growing up.

Proenza Schouler

Purple Dolphin Stars in Proenza Schouler's Fall Fashion Film

Fashion films tend to be odd almost as a rule (see: Prada Fall 2012, Margiela for H&M, et al.), but Proenza Schouler's new Fall 2012 video Desert Tide might just take the cake for sheer weirdness.



Fashion films tend to be odd almost as a rule (see: Prada Fall 2012, Margiela for H&M, et al.), but Proenza Schouler's new Fall 2012 video Desert Tide might just take the cake for sheer weirdness.

For the just-released two-minute clip, the creative team at Proenza forwent traditional models in favor of female avatars from the video game Second Life. As a result, the clothes are digitized versions of the ones that came down the Fall runway, and the girls who wear them don't behave like humans. On the contrary, they do a strange interpretive dance that involves a lot of expansive arm movement and a little levitation. They're joined from the outset by a purple dolphin that can swim through sand and, later, what looks like an early '90s model Honda Accord.

Jack McCollough's sister Kate served as creative director for the video, and worked with Second Life to make it a reality. It was originally commissioned for the Proenza Schouler store on New York's Madison Avenue, but you can see the final product, in all its quirkiness, below.

fashion week

Proenza Schouler Spring 2013

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez churned out an array of patchwork leather, digital prints, and grommets for Proenza Schouler's Spring '13 collection — bold and bright as ever.

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez churned out an array of patchwork leather, digital prints, and grommets for Proenza Schouler's Spring '13 collection — bold and bright as ever. The duo were inspired by the digital world, "the Internet, the images you're bombarded with, and the collage of information that you get every day," said Hernandez. With that notion in mind, the designers pieced together an array of bright leathers to create structured vests, oversize perforated jackets, skirts, and dresses. In between all of the in-your-face leather, there were satin dresses and tops showcasing the same collage technique with digital prints featuring images like kids at a pool, crowds of people, and beach scenes. It's a given that this isn't a collection for wallflowers, but statement makers like front-row attendees Kate Bosworth and Alexa Chung are sure to give these pieces a go. For the finale, the designers highlighted digital-printed dresses adorned with neon pink or green buttons on top and grommet detailing on the bottom. It was controlled chaos, and we loved every second of it.

  • Trends: Leather, patchwork, bright colors, digital prints, embellishment.
  • Colors: Red, lime green, black, white, navy, pink, turquoise.
  • Key Piece: The photo-printed dress embellished with hot-pink buttons and metal grommets.
  • Accessories: Cutout platform sandals, knee-high gladiator sandals, tough paillette and printed bags, grommet-detailed platform sandals
  • Who Should Wear It: Bold statement makers like front-row attendees Kate Bosworth, Alexa Chung, and Kirsten Dunst.
fashion week

Proenza Schouler Spring 2013

About a week ago, when the Proenza Schouler Spring 2013 show invite arrived, we were struck by its odd, quasi-digital look.
Proenza Schouler Spring 2013 | Runway

About a week ago, when the Proenza Schouler Spring 2013 show invite arrived, we were struck by its odd, quasi-digital look. With its rounded font and high-contrast blue-on-white color scheme, it called to mind the kind of low-fi imagery one might see flashing across a late-night TV screen. You know, when there's nothing on but infomercials. Quite frankly, it seemed a little cold for a line that's always had one eye on artisanal craft.

On Wednesday evening, though, when the actual show finally rolled around, that strange invite imagery suddenly made sense. For this was a collection about the information age, and, more precisely, the constant influx of pixelated imagery that bombards us on a second-by-second basis.

Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough called it "randomness," but there was nothing random going on here. Sure, there was a wild array of texture and pattern — colorblocked python skins, collaged photo prints, reflective leathers, perforated skins, primary colors — but it was all harnessed in by sharp, boxy silhouettes and carefully appointed lines. Skirts covered in graphic panels of texture were cut in precise A-line shapes, while chiffon dresses emblazoned in swirling prints were carefully fit to hug the body.

And as for the designers' signature use of traditional craft? Well, that was there too. It came in the form of geometric crochet, paneled patchwork, and gorgeous embellishment. The series of dresses that closed the show, with their perfect rows of grommets and studs that glistened like digitized sequins, were especially entrancing.

Editor's Pick

10 Glorious Years of Proenza Schouler

In the 10 years since they graduated from Parsons and started their powerhouse label Proenza Schouler, designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have earned awards and accolades from all corners of the industry.
Proenza Schouler Marks 10 Year Milestone With First Store

In the 10 years since they graduated from Parsons and started their powerhouse label Proenza Schouler, designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have earned awards and accolades from all corners of the industry. This month marks another big milestone: the designers have opened their very first store at 822 Madison Avenue in New York. "All these classic designers are up here — the Chanels, Celine, Jil Sander, with Dolce & Gabbana and Cartier across the street," Hernandez said. "It just seems kind of big-league."

And while opening a store is undoubtedly a big move for the duo, they've already accomplished a great deal in the decade they've spent in fashion. Herein, a timeline of their other impressive accomplishments throughout the years.

Photo: Lazaro Hernandez (left) and Jack McCollough take a bow at the end of their Spring 2005 New York Fashion Week show.