“For us, we craft the 21st century”: Why fashion can’t look away from Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s Loewe

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez invented a very specific kind of New York cool. I was a young, wide-eyed fashion lover, part of a generation of Singaporeans who grew up on Tumblr and Pinterest, voraciously taking in what we could from their creation of energy. We followed every stitch and hem instinctively, watching them emerge from Parsons School of Design as a duo to know, soon filling the pages of glossies in a sweep of everything fashion could be. What began on the floor of their bedroom quickly grew into something we felt in real time, each sighting a real quench of thirst, a small pulse of our time.

With that came a shift in how I understood desire. Before McCollough and Hernandez, I am not sure I grasped it in its entirety. With them, it became immediate and tangible. All it took was one dress, one bag, one pair of shoes. I remember wanting in, whatever that meant to me, drawn to a world that felt both exclusive and strangely open. That, to me, was the magic of it. Even from afar, it never felt entirely out of reach.

That same pulse extended beyond the runway and onto the women who defined the moment, from Chloë Sevigny to Kirsten Dunst. Their first major collection, autumn/winter 2003 at the National Arts Club in New York, was a slinky take on city nonchalance, an outline in black and silver where everyday pieces quietly segued into luxury worn only by the most fashion fluent and on the pulse. The tie-dyed pieces of resort 2009 carried an energy that sat somewhere between art and instinct. And then there was the Proenza Schouler PS1 bag, a hard-headed, almost stubborn departure from the perfectly finished bags of the time. Dubbed the anti-It bag, it rejected logos in favour of something more understated and lived-in, a sensibility that feels just as relevant now.

By the time the industry caught up, the recognition and uproarious applause and happiness felt inevitable, almost like a formal acknowledgement of something that had already been in motion. The duo first took home the Swarovski Award for ready-to-wear in 2003, followed by the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award in 2004 and later the Accessory Designer of the Year award in 2009, alongside numerous other accolades that cemented their place in fashion history. So when they stepped down from their label in January 2025, a name that had always felt personal, drawn from their mothers’ maiden names, it was described as a heartbreak for the New York scene and understandably so.

But fashion rarely stands still. By March 2025, they were announced at the helm of Loewe, one of the oldest and most respected luxury houses in the world, a move that felt both inevitable and seismic. The news landed in the midst of one of the most controversial seasons in recent memory, with major shifts across Dior, Chanel and beyond. “We kept saying, thank God we’re part of the shift!” laughs Hernandez when I ask what it felt like to be in the middle of it all.

When we speak, McCollough and Hernandez are calling in from Paris, in the quiet after a particularly full few weeks. There is a sense of having just come up for air. They have been moving almost continuously, from the autumn/winter 2026 show in Paris to Madrid and then on to London for an event honouring the house’s debut collection. Just before that, there was a personal pause in Miami, where they spent time visiting McCollough’s mother, followed by a brief stop in Massachusetts. In London, the room was filled with a new generation of cultural figures, from Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas to David Jonsson and Naomi Ackie, a fitting reflection of the world they are now shaping.

On the chilly Parisian morning of our chat, Hernandez is nursing a bad cold, yet even through it, he and McCollough come across as warm, generous and open. It feels almost at odds with the scale of the moment around them, a quiet reminder that even as everything shifts, their way of moving through it has not. Though they are in separate rooms, they finish each other’s sentences with ease, their expressions mirroring one another, like a split screen of a single, continuous thought.

Hernandez slowly adds: “It is part of a new era, a new story and a new chapter in fashion. To be part of that was quite a monumental shift in the industry. It was extraordinary and we are so grateful. This is such an amazing place.” McCollough notes: “It was like a domino effect. A couple of creative directors left their roles and moved to new jobs and that left a couple of openings so a few more people stepped into those, which opened up even more openings. I feel like the industry has never really seen anything like it.”

“For us, we craft the 21st century. How do you create something today that you couldn’t make yesterday? Tools are available now that allow us to make things we couldn’t last season or even yesterday. So it was about pushing technology and craft and ideas of making.”

A year into their tenure, the timing feels almost poetic: Loewe turns 180. Few houses carry such authority today, its name—soft, almost indulgent on the tongue—serving as a subtle marker of stylistic fluency. Established in Madrid in 1846, the brand began as a collective of skilled leather craftsmen before German leather craftsman Enrique Loewe Roessberg brought structure and vision to the house. Now recognised as one of the oldest names within LVMH’s portfolio, Loewe has journeyed from a maker of finely wrought leather goods to one of fashion’s most resonant and culturally attuned forces.

There is something to be said of the brand’s logo, too. Even prior to its rebrand, it possessed an inexplicable modernity. First brought to life by Spanish artist Vicente Vela in 1970, the interlocking four Ls stem from its origins in leather marking. It could, of course, be mistaken for a crab, but it feels curiously right for 2026—especially alongside McCollough and Hernandez’s contemporary thinking.

Things, beyond logos, are shifting—slowly but steadily. “It was a lot of change for us all at once. We were leaving the company that we had founded and been in our entire adult lives. We moved out of our house, moved out of New York, moved to a new country. We started this new role, settling in a foreign country and we also don’t speak the language,” shares Hernandez. “Before we got here, the way we worked was that Lazaro and myself designed every collection ourselves. We have a farm in Massachusetts and we’d go up there at the beginning of every season and sketch for two weeks. Now we’ve got an incredible team of designers and we’re guiding them. There’s a difference between being a designer and being a creative director. I would say we were creative directors of Proenza, but we leaned more towards the designer side. It’s not that we’re not heavily involved in the design side now, but it’s a very different process. So I think that was a big adjustment for us,” adds McCollough.

In an industry that moves at the speed of light, it feels refreshing to hear the level of thoughtfulness—and slowness—with which the pair is finding their stride. There is no quick fix when stepping into a house with a history as rich as 180 years. So what does that look like for the brand?

Naturally, craft sits at the centre. To date, Loewe has been defined by a distinct set of codes: the weaving and knotting of delectable leather, a commitment to sustainability and a willingness to experiment with artisanal techniques—from ceramic glazing to wood carving. There is a palpable sense of the handmade, a kind of quiet whimsy that exists alongside technical finesse. Pair that with McCollough and Hernandez’s creative partnership of over 20 years and magic is bound to happen.

“We didn’t know what to expect. It was big shoes to fill and we weren’t sure what people’s reactions were going to be. At our first show, I thought everyone was going to be looking at us with daggers. We came out there and got a standing ovation. It was amazing,” shares McCollough with a smile.

They’ve had immense triumphs since joining the helm, but what about their challenges, I ask. Hernandez notes: “It’s the idea of having to plug our creativity into a different system or way of working. I think it takes a lot of brain power to understand how to manoeuvre it. It’s a huge company and how to plug ourselves into it, how to create change and how to shift without losing its identity from the past, but still steering it in a new direction so it feels coherent with where it was and who the customer is—I mean, that is the job. With Proenza, there was no history to the brand. In the early days we were just kind of making it up. It could be anything. It was just about whenever we’re feeling it that way. It was very autobiographical in some way.” Adds McCollough: “There’s a trip we took or an art show we saw, or a friend that we had just made that was really inspiring to us. It was about a moment. In some ways, it was harder to come up with an idea or an understanding of where to go.

“Whereas at Loewe, there’s 180 years of history, which is insane to think about. It’s the second oldest fashion house in the world. There are the codes of the house, the symbols and the logos, all this material to draw from. So in some ways it is kind of easier creatively because it’s easy to open a drawer and find stuff.”

Their recent sophomore fall/winter 2026 collection felt like a continuation, but with a certain ease. After a buzzy debut last year, this was a soft exhale into what they could do, a clearer articulation rather than a reset.

Presented at the Esplanade Saint-Louis in Paris, the show unfolded as a colour-punched homage to what they described as the “sun-drenched, optimistic physicality” of their first season. A Spanish thread remained central, woven through references including the work of Cosima von Bonin.

The collection itself was a textural feast: plush, teddy-like dresses, sequined baby doll silhouettes grounded with sports shoes and frocks that moved with a buoyant lightness. These were pieces that revealed themselves slowly, the kind of craft that deepens on the third, fourth, fifth look.

Long established in womenswear, the season also marked the pair’s first foray into menswear, adding a new dimension to an already assured vocabulary. The shift brought with it a different kind of pressure, one they were acutely aware of. McCollough says: “In some ways it feels so different. A sophomore collection feels like the stakes are higher. Once you have a freshman collection, people are excited for something new, so they are maybe a little more gentle. I think expectations are higher with the second collection, so perhaps we felt more pressure on that level. But we are best under pressure. We rise to the occasion.”

The show proved a fresh slate for the craft aspect of the brand, which Hernandez lights up when he talks about. “Craft is a broad term. It could feel kind of ‘vintagey’ and homely, a bit grandma, or quaint like crochet and things like that. And we respect all those kinds of things, it’s amazing. But that’s not the kind of craft we’re necessarily interested in. For us, we craft the 21st century. How do you create something today that you couldn’t make yesterday? Tools are available to us now that allow us to make things we couldn’t do last season or even yesterday. So it was about pushing technology and craft and ideas of making,” he shares.

He homes in on looks one, four, 58 and 64 from the collection, all colourful slip dresses that appear almost naked to the eye, as he walks me through the complex intricacies one might miss when seeing them on the runway. “Those opening metal-moulded latex or silicone pieces, the raw strands, and the vintage garments we pieced together on a computer file to create a perfect slip dress archetype were all computer-generated through scans. From that, we created a three-dimensional mould, printed a negative and poured a high-shine liquid latex. We then welded the side seams so they were completely seamless, melting them together into one continuous piece. These slip dresses come from vintage inspiration, but feel almost like they’re from the future. Every look had its own idea, its own technique and level of craft. We really wanted to push that and wake everyone up. It was about playfulness, making and discovery.”

Part of the beauty of Loewe, at least on our shores, is how this sense of discovery extends seamlessly into the store experience—a delightful overload of scents, sights and sounds, and luxurious trinkets at every turn. It goes without saying that one of McCollough and Hernandez’s most successful creations has only added immensely to this experience. The Amazona bag has emerged from that spirit of rediscovery as the Amazona 180—a house icon from the ’70s, reimagined with one strap. “We heard that it’s sold out completely, and you never have that expectation. Obviously, we’re thrilled that people are loving it. That’s part of the beauty of coming here, where there’s this kind of existing language, this heritage and codes to pull from. The Amazona has been around for almost 60 years here at Loewe, and when we came into the house, we dived into the archives. The Amazona really stood out to us and we wanted to take that, rework it and give it our spin, so we took off a handle.” As for other hot items we should be on the lookout for? The cashmere polo in red and the climber shoe which the duo details as their version of the sneaker.

In May, McCollough and Hernandez will arrive in Singapore for a landmark moment: the local staging of the Loewe Craft Prize. Since its inception in 2016, Loewe has positioned the prize as a global platform for contemporary craft, championing innovation across disciplines and redefining what making can look like today.

This year is particularly significant, marking the prize’s first presentation in Southeast Asia. The scale is formidable: over 5,100 submissions from 133 countries, distilled into 30 finalists representing 19 nations. Their works span a wide spectrum, from glass and wood to textiles and lacquer, each pushing material and technique into new territory.

The shortlisted pieces will be on view at the National Gallery Singapore from 13 May to 14 June, with the winner revealed on 12 May. Among those in contention is Singaporean bookbinder Adelene Koh, placing a local voice within a distinctly global conversation.

With Loewe going full steam ahead, a 180-year legacy is set to cement itself firmly in the future and McCollough and Hernandez are embarking on not just a new chapter, but a story. “For me, it’s like a new book. We wrote a book and we closed it—it was a great book, but now it’s on the shelf and we’re working on a new kind of book. It feels like the road ahead is wide open and we’re just seeing how we navigate it.” What would the genre be I ask? They both laugh in unison. “A thriller.”