Not that anyone doubted that Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough were New York fashion s cool kids, but for confirmation, you had only to glance at their front row tonight. Crammed in tight were Nicole Richie, Chloë Sevigny, Selma Blair, and Mary-Kate Olsen, more than one of whom came with her own bodyguard. Those starlets—and their social-set seatmates—are the target audience for the duo s energetic Fall collection, which had the edgy naïveté and sexy legginess that have lately become Proenza Schouler signatures.
The designers started off with a toggle jacket cropped below the breasts in a manner reminiscent of the silhouettes in their very first runway show. It was paired with high-waisted skinny jeans in a graffiti print made in collaboration with the denim label J Brand. (Just try keeping those on shelves.) The model carried their new P.S. 11 bag, a more structured take on the P.S. 1, and forged ahead on wooden-platform, stacked-heel shoes.
The scribble motif wasn t the collection s only eye-grabbing pattern. To create the woven jacquards they used for their baby-doll minidresses (worn, like almost everything in the show, with thigh-high hose), Hernandez and McCollough took photocopies of plaids, jiggling the fabrics on the copier s plate glass to create their blurred, distorted effects. Other prep-school standbys got seriously tweaked as well. Varsity jackets came with purple or green fur collars, while a snappy cheerleader skirt was teamed with a luxe black fox sweatshirt.
Relatively subdued and spare by comparison were a pair of accordion-pleated flannel minidresses in navy and pine green that were layered over black mesh shirts. Sometimes even It girls needs to dress like grown-ups. If not quite the wow that the duo s winning Spring collection was, tonight s outing was still a smart, satisfying sequel.
