Proenza Schouler’s Designers Discuss the State of the Fashion Industry
A lot has changed since Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez launched their brand, Proenza Schouler, in 2002. “I feel when we started, fashion was about exclusivity,” McCollough told Samria Nasr, the editor in chief for Harper’s BAZAAR, this morning at Spring Studios. “It was like I have this thing that you want that you can’t have. It’s really shifted in a major way.”
That evolution was the topic of conversation for a program hosted by IMG during New York Fashion Week. Normally, the fashion duo would be gearing up for their seasonal show—finalizing guest lists and putting the final touches on the collection—but due to the global health crisis, they have tentatively moved their presentation to October.
“Obviously, it’s been horrible … but the same time, sometimes it takes a forced change for things to evolve to a new place,” said Hernandez. “I’m curious to see how New York evolves with this kind of forced change and all this movement that’s happening now. This city is going to become this very different place.”
They also expressed how they stayed connected with industry peers in New York as well as the international design community—bouncing ideas off one another and figuring out how the fashion could move forward. “We all kind of exchanged notes for the first time,” Hernandez said. “We also had a WhatsApp with all the American designers,” added McCollough.
The industry has banded together to try and solve the problems at hand, but solutions continue to evade. Everyone has to evaluate the best courses of action for their own brands—which could mean presenting shows during the Spring 2021 season or extending them to later dates.
But even with all this uncertainty, there are systems in place for those in need. “We have to support our American designers, we have to be part of everyone being lifted out of this,” said Nasr. “These are unprecedented times. There are no road maps for this.”
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