What Proenza Schouler is known for
New York fashion label founded in 2002 by Parsons classmates Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who combined their mothers' maiden names for the brand and sold their senior thesis collection to Barneys before opening a Madison Avenue store in 2012.
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez met at Parsons, merged their senior thesis into one collection, and sold it entire to Barneys — the founding legend of Proenza Schouler, named for their mothers' maiden names, launched 2002 and crowned almost immediately: inaugural winners of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2004. They became New York fashion's definitive art-school success: the PS1 satchel (2008) was the it-bag American design had been waiting for — the Madison Avenue flagship followed in 2012 — and the mainline's printed silks, sculpted knits and gallery-adjacent references made them the Whitney crowd's house label.
For two decades the duo carried downtown's flag — CFDA awards in multiples, a White House state-dinner dress for Dr. Biden, collections that treated Ellsworth Kelly and Judd as moodboard peers. In January 2025 they stepped down from their own label, and by April were installed as creative directors of Loewe, succeeding Jonathan Anderson — the biggest European posting ever handed to American designers of their generation.
Proenza Schouler continues under new creative leadership with the founders' codes intact: intellectual polish, prints with provenance, New York arguing it belongs in Paris.
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — The PS1 satchel and downtown intellectual polish from New York's art-fashion duo
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Where next
- Elie Saab — Paris
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- Barbara Bui — Paris
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