Proenza Schouler debut effortlessly cool looks at NYFW

NEW YORK — Known for notoriously dressing the It Girl, it came as no surprise when actor and fashion muse Chloë Sevigny opened the show for Proenza Schouler Saturday to a room packed with her celeb peers.

The design duo behind Proenza Schouler, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, took fashion show attendees on a showcase of their reality and the spirit of the everyday woman at the Chelsea Factory for New York Fashion Week. Named after their mother’s maiden names, the two designers honored the women in their lives both new and old with their latest collection. It was the growth of the wardrobe of the sophisticated intellectual woman they have been designing for over 20 years, they said. As they have grown, she has grown as well.

“It was totally a reflection of the women in our lives,” McCollough said after the show. “It was the first season where we made the mood board just out of headshots of the women in our lives.”

Models could have easily walked off the runway and onto the New York streets in their effortlessly cool looks. Hernandez said he wanted a break from “Instagram clothes” or the flashy dressing often seen across social media.

Models entered the runway with barely there makeup looks from behind a transparent film background as the words of author Ottessa Moshfegh were narrated by Sevigny over the speakers with the musical composition by Arca.

“It’s the beginning of something new for us,” Hernandez said.

The layout of the show gave attendees an intimate close up look at the details of the clothes like the glittery over the knee boots and pops of color that peeked out from cutouts around the models’ legs giving them freedom to move. Models snaked around the runway in carefully constructed blazers cinched at the waist with bolo tie-like belts, knitted sweaters paired with leather skirts and PVC pants to the velvet dresses dyed with ice.

The designers conceptualized a woman’s “external shell” and how it would look and feel on the Proenza Schouler woman. In one such dress, Hernandez and McCollough had molded a metal fabric dress to the model’s body.

TikTok stars, fashion influencers and even Ella Emhoff, the step-daughter of Vice President Kamala Harris, were in attendance.

Sienna Miller, Meghann Fahy of “White Lotus” fame and Natasha Lyonne stopped backstage to congratulate the designers after the show. But McCollough and Hernandez could not hide their excitement at the news that Marc Jacobs was in attendance. The pair had idolized Jacobs as fledgling designers and McCollough had previously interned for the designer.