Just when everyone was reaching fashion week saturation, Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez came along, and in a panoply of velvet, ponyskin, leather, and metallic lace, shook the audience out of its Thursday morning malaise. May we suggest that they make this their permanent time slot? Like spring, their fall show was rich with exquisite handworked details, but rendered as it was in a stained-glass palette of magenta, violet, moss green, and black, the effect was more baroque. Except, that is, when it came to the collection's silhouette, which had a strictness that last season's lacked. There was air in a tenting cashmere felt jacket with a cutaway back, but the pencil skirt it was shown with, like nearly everything else, followed the lines of the body. Sexy. But in a rigorous, sophisticated way that some of the designers' youthful peers might do well to learn from.
Now, back to that stained-glass concept. McCollough and Hernandez elevated color-blocking to a subtle new plane. Not only did the elbow patches of a collarless coat come in a contrasting hue, so did the yoke, hemline, and darts. Paneling was a recurring motif, too. A silk velvet sheath was overlaid with thick seams to create an intriguing trompe l'oeil effect, while decorative zippers, which also turned up as trim on shoes and booties, replaced the seams on shells and skirts. Another skirt, encrusted top-to-bottom in crystals, seemed altogether too precious to sit on. But silk jersey dresses, the architectural underlayers of which glittered with embroideries, will look effortlessly cool waltzing down the red carpet or shimmying on the gala circuit.
