This isn’t Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s first Paris rodeo. Earlier than the pandemic, the Proenza Schouler duo had a two-season stint within the Metropolis of Gentle. It was a transfer made in effort to boost gross sales and improve their worldwide visibility, I wrote on the time, leaving unstated the elephant within the room that was their huge ambition to land a design job at a French heritage model.
Now, they’ve finished it. They have been named the brand new artistic administrators of Loewe, changing Jonathan Anderson, in March. A few months earlier that they had introduced they have been stepping away from the label they based in New York nearly 25 years in the past, releasing themselves as much as take the Loewe put up. That’s a monumental determination so far as life decisions go, however Hernandez and McCollough did so with excessive enthusiasm, primed and prepared for a brand new chapter. It’s been six months since they landed in Paris and so they have been nothing however smiles at a go to to their Rue Scribe headquarters, which was buzzing with managed vitality 24 hours earlier than their present.
“It’s been so enjoyable,” Hernandez stated, “I don’t even know easy methods to speak about it: with the ability to unleash the factor within us, no restrictions, simply with the ability to play and experiment. We’re so completely satisfied, and I believe it comes throughout.” That it did. In a custom-built area behind the Université de Paris within the 14th arrondissement this morning, McCollough and Hernandez’s Loewe was alive with a sportif sensibility true to their New York-bred vogue roots.
In truth, they stated their pillars for the model are Spanishness, craft, and that “it has to appear to be us.” Loewe is the second-oldest luxurious model on the planet after Hermès, having been established in 1846 in Madrid. As a leather-based home, craft is in its marrow, a distinction their predecessor emphasised with the institution of the annual Craft Prize. However now it’s Jack and Lazaro’s flip. By the use of introduction, that they had Ellsworth Kelly’s Yellow Panel With Crimson Curve, on mortgage from a collector good friend, put in on the entrance to the venue.
Its sunny colours have been nicely represented in a group that spanned shiny heat-sealed leather-based jackets sculpted like bells and draped multi-layer scarf attire, their seam allowances making a cascade of ruffles. These have been proven alongside sportswear archetypes—denims, button-downs, T-shirts, and windbreakers—“twisted,” as McCollough stated, “throught the filter of excessive craft.” The denims, for instance? Shredded leather-based. The button-downs: leather-based too, hand-pleated and spray-painted. And the tanks and tees: leather-based “yarn” shot via with wire to create their crinkly shapes. Different experiments have been extra high-tech, just like the towel attire produced from 3-D printed “cloth” with the pile of velvet and the windbreaker from what they described as a first-of-its-kind silk gore-tex.
The season’s key bag form is a one-handle Amazona in suede, leather-based, or croc, sufficiently big for a laptop computer however with a slouchy, running-for-the-subway feeling. You’ll be able to take the boys out of New York, however you may’t take the New York out of the boys. The verve they delivered to their debut simply could be the new Loewe’s biggest promoting level.
