In a blow to New York fashion, Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez announced today that they’re leaving the label they founded in 2002 as young graduates of Parsons School of Design. McCollough and Hernandez, whose departure is effective January 31, will remain on the board and continue to be shareholders, and the brand’s CEO, Shira Suveyke Snyder, who was hired in October, is heading up the search for a new creative director.
“We feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to build such an extraordinary team, some of whom have been with us since day one… We’re confident that we’ve been able to impart some of what fuels us creatively, and through them, Proenza Schouler will continue to evolve in a way that makes sense not only for the brand, but for the moment,” McCollough and Hernandez told Vogue.
“A search for our successor is underway, and it will be fascinating to hear what Proenza Schouler has meant to these individuals: so many memories, so many periods of work…it’s been two decades of collections. We started this company out of our bedroom while still students in school, barely into our twenties. We could never have imagined all those years back the transformative road that was ahead of us. We are lucky to have had an incredible support system around us, both within and outside the company, people who feel like family, and it is because of them that Proenza Schouler is what it is today, and we hope that in some small way, this journey has left a tiny, indelible mark on NY fashion.”
The designers celebrated that 20th anniversary in 2023, inviting Chloe Sevigny, one of their first celebrity fans, to open their Autumn/Winter show that year. McCollough described it as “our most personal collection yet—less revolving around a theme, [and] more looking at the actual women in our lives: what is it they want?”
Understanding what stylish women want is one of the designers’ strong suits; they’ve cultivated a cool-girl crew that includes stars like Sevigny and Natasha Lyonne, fashion insiders such as Moda Operandi co-founder Lauren Santo Domingo and W Magazine editor-in-chief Sara Moonves, and members of the art and literary crowds from Olympia Scarry to Ottessa Moshfegh, who’ve grown up alongside them. That cool factor helped land them the first-ever CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund prize in 2004 (you can see their best looks in Vogue here). Seamless, the Douglas Keeve-directed feature-length documentary about the competition, earned both designers their first mentions on IMDb.com. They also received numerous accolades from the CFDA over the years, including the 2003 Swarovski Award for Ready-to-Wear [now the Emerging Designer award], the 2009 Accessory Designer of the Year award for their best-selling PS1 bag, and the Womenswear Designer of the Year award in 2007, 2011 and 2013.
The Proenza Schouler origin story abounds with fairytale moments. When Hernandez, still a student, found himself on a plane with Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, he scribbled a note on a napkin and handed it over to her in first class. She was frosty, reportedly, but she passed his note along, and two weeks later, he had an internship at Michael Kors. (McCollough, for his part, worked at Marc Jacobs while still at school.) Fast-forward to their graduation in 2002: Julie Gilhart, then Barneys’s fashion director and a stalwart fashion scout, was in the crowd and liked what she saw so much she bought the collection for the agenda-setting New York department store.
Looking back at that Seamless documentary, of their nine fellow finalists, only one is still showing on the runway (Libertine’s Johnson Hartig). McCollough and Hernandez have faced their fair share of hurdles, as well, from investor troubles to a run of shows in Paris that, rather than catapult them to the big leagues they longed to join, ended after two seasons. Proenza Schouler is part of the New York establishment now, but they’ve held onto their “cool kids” image. And so the designers’ abrupt exit is guaranteed to fuel speculation about their next moves—they’re only in their mid-forties, after all.
A popular rumour—in an industry that seems to be feeding on them these days—names them as successors to Jonathan Anderson at Loewe, who has, in turn, been rumoured to be headed to Dior. The designers didn’t respond to a question about these rumours. In any case, they’re certainly leaving a hole in this season’s fashion week calendar. Asked if they are leaving the door open to one day return to their positions as creative directors of Proenza Schouler, McCollough and Hernandez said, “Who knows what the future holds for any of us, but after a lot of thought, we feel ready to turn the page on this chapter in our lives…We are the people that we are because of the extraordinary individuals we’ve met and the unforgettable experiences we’ve had through the work we do. We feel an immense sense of gratitude. Proenza Schouler has been the defining story of our lives until now, but we have always believed that a life well-lived should consist of multiple and diverse chapters and to date, we’ve only had one. We look forward to seeing what the future holds and will continue to dream big and be open to whatever comes our way.”
Big picture: New York has a creative director job opening—a rare occasion here. “We are searching for a visionary leader who can seamlessly pick up where Jack and Lazaro have left off and honour the brand codes they have developed,” Suveyke Snyder told Vogue. “This person should have the love for concept, technique and craftsmanship that will push us forward into our next chapter.” And, “our global search will accelerate now that this news has been made public. With an extraordinary atelier and a world-class studio, we expect a seamless transition as we identify a new design lead and set timelines for the future.”
This article was first published on Vogue.com.
