Proenza Schouler Spring 2021 Ready-to-Wear

Last week, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough called in from LA and Miami to talk about their very New York project for spring 2021. In the absence of a fashion week show, the Proenza Schouler designers made their first-ever book with the photographer Daniel Shea. Shot in August, it pairs expressive model shots with even more evocative images of the city: the skyline at sunset, the Empire State building seen through a tangle of power lines, a super-tall tower on Billionaire’s Row. It’s an ode to their hometown in a year when they spent very little of their time in it.

In the early months of the pandemic they were up at their place in the Berkshires. They spent March and April on Zoom business calls trying to figure out how to make it through this unprecedented situation. When they finally turned to their next collection, their normal processes weren’t possible: no research trip, no dips into their archive, no silhouette studies on a model. “All we walked into the studio with was a feeling. We wanted something that felt effortless and warm, we wanted to get rid of the sharp edges. It just had to make you feel good. For us that’s what fashion should be at its most successful. It should make one’s life easier and feel good,” Hernandez said. “A forever quality,” McCollough elaborated, “something that lasts.”

That brought them to the idea of this book. Video has become fashion’s go-to means of communication in this COVID year; fashion weeks became digital fashion weeks and brands are launching TikToks. Hernandez and McCollough’s insistence on the analog stands in contrast to all that, yet feels of a piece with their years-long embrace of craft and handwork. There are decorative treatments for both night and day here; allover sequins cover a straight-line shirtdress and the shoulders of a button-down shirt and waistline of button-fly trousers are graphically dip-dyed. But the big story is really the attitude adjustment; without being boring the clothes feel simpler than what they’ve put on their recent runways.

They emphasized easy-to-wear ribbed knit separates and dresses, and stripped any artifice from their tailoring, which is just slightly oversized and mannish save for the suits’ soft pastel colors. Putting the accent on silhouette, they made a dress with a choker collar, a cut-out asymmetric neckline, and voluminous sleeves, then cut the drama with puffy slippers. Those flat shoes are a key to the season’s new mood, a timely nod to our more circumscribed lifestyles and the renewed value that women are placing on comfort. It’s looking more and more like we’ll be staying homebound well into 2021. The collection’s knockout dress in stretch jersey with circular cut-outs on the bodice will be similarly comfortable, but the reason that women will really respond to it is because it looks like a guaranteed good time. Who isn’t craving that?

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