There was a glaring hole at New York Fashion Week for fall 2025: the absence of Proenza Schouler. A month ago, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez dropped the bombshell that they would be leaving the label they founded in 2002, presumably to succeed Jonathan Anderson at Loewe, although that news has yet to be announced.
In the meantime, though they skipped showing, their assured collection spoke for them. The polished and pretty lineup had many of the season’s trends — modern utility, volume and asymmetry play — alongside comforting, elevated everyday pieces like wide-wale corduroys, draped argyle knits and a swingy shearling jacket, all with that extra design oomph for which they are known. (McCollough and Hernandez remain company shareholders and serve on the Proenza Schouler board.)
“Their goal is to be involved at a higher, more strategic level about where the brand goes for the future, and bring in a new creative voice for day to day into the studio,” chief executive officer Shira Suveyke Snyder said during a collection walk-through, adding that they’ve been interviewing candidates since December to take over the creative lead but that an announcement is not imminent.
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The brand also recently opened a sparkling new store, on Mercer Street in Manhattan, after construction delayed it from September. With an interior defined by four large-scale white resin, fiberglass and stone cubes, the space is designed to evoke an art gallery.
“This season, we were really looking at nature and how that seeps into life outside of being outside,” said executive vice president, chief product officer Lisa Muscatel of the earthy-hued fall collection that hit all the brand touchstones — craft, texture and print — while also delivering cool, uncomplicated clothes to reach for every day.
The key look, which WWD photographed in the new Mercer Street store, was very Proenza: a fatigue green technical canvas zip front bubble hem dress, styled as a skirt, worn with a silk viscose hooded cowl top that felt like a technical layer, and a black blazer in the perfect spongey wool scuba fabric that wasn’t too heavy.
Tailoring was a big topic in the collections shown this week, but here it was pushed in unexpected directions — more casual on a black scuba blazer with front cargo pockets that could be zipped off, worn with kick flare pants and loafers, for example, and more elevated on a strapless black dress with billowing hem that had red boucle plaid suiting fabric as a cascading side panel.
The duo’s dedication to craft was evident in the work that went into the tiny green handmade molded leather flowers, sewn one by one, on a black sheer silk georgette top and skirt, and on a bandeau dress that was constructed of seamed-together rather than printed pieces of pleated fabric. But they always kept an eye on ease. And their jersey dress of the season was one of their best ever — in an olive gauze with a gorgeous plisse tunic draped on either side with sleek hardware and tiny chains under the arms anchoring it in place, and a matching plisse long skirt.
They offered lots of great outerwear in leather or brushed alpaca, and continued to expand their accessories universe, with handsome-looking tubular clutches, papery leather shoulder bags and totes in a range of colors, as well as slingbacks, over-knee-boots and loafers with flower-shaped leather tassels.
“We’re happy, we feel really good about it,” Snyder said of the collection, adding that business is trending up as well. E-commerce in the first week of February was up 20 times from last year, she said, and the store “reflects how we think about the future in a really great, expressive way.”
